Pamplin Park Limits Visitation Hours To Taking
Groups With Reservations
By Kathryn Jorgensen
(January 2009 Civil War News)

PETERSBURG, Va. — Due to the weak economy, Pamplin Historical Park and the National Museum of the Civil War Soldier in Dinwiddie County began the new year by going to a reservation visitation schedule.

Park President A. Wilson Greene said, “What’s important for readers to know is that the park is not closing.” All of the facilities, exhibits and trails are being maintained.

The privately owned park will also sponsor its usual schedule of reservation-based programs, such as battlefield tours, the annual symposium, summer teacher institutes, history day camps, school field trips and adventure camps.

Greene said, “We certainly hope as conditions improve we will once again establish public hours in the spring.” In the meantime, reservations to visit may be made 48 hours in advance.

Admission fees for non-members will be $100 for a group of up to 10 people, and $10 per adult, $5 per child for larger groups.  Park members may make reservations 24 hours in advance with no minimum numbers and no admission fee. The new fees amount to a reduction from the previous $15 adult nonmember admission.

Despite significant staff reductions that are being worked out, Greene said the park has sufficient staff to deal with scheduled groups. At its height the park has 63 fulltime-equivalent positions, including the restaurant and store.

The park will continue to accelerate its use of the Internet to fulfill its educational mission through online programming. “Pamplin Historical Park has always been on the cutting edge of museum education and we believe that the Worldwide Web will play an increasingly prominent role in the way museums reach their audiences,” Greene said.

Pamplin Park does not receive public funding or government appropriations, which other facilities rely on to bridge the gap between income and expenses, he noted. The Commonwealth of Virginia, a local bank, Wal-Mart and others have given grants to Pamplin for specific projects, but not operating costs.

“The severe economic downturn has undercut the ability of the Pamplin Foundation to support the park at current levels,” according to Greene.

Despite the slowing economy, Pamplin Park was doing well. “We’ve had a very good year here [2008] relative to what museums and historic sites have experienced.” The park was just 1 percent off the previous year’s record levels.

The creation of Pamplin Park dates back to 1992 when Greene, as president of the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites (APCWS), wrote Dr. Robert B. (for Boisseau) Pamplin looking for a contribution to help APCWS buy a 100-acre tract of the Breakthrough Battlefield.

Dr. Pamplin’s maternal ancestral family (Boisseau) lived in Tudor Hall and most of what is now the park, including the Breakthrough, is that ancestral land.

The Pamplin Foundation of Portland, Ore., decided to buy the land for a park, with APCWS handling the purchase, planning, construction and operation of a battlefield park. Pamplin Park Civil War Site opened in June 1994.

Five months later Dr. Pamplin acquired Tudor Hall and adjacent land that he wanted to incorporate into the park and expand its vision to include a “world-class museum.” He preferred to deal with Greene directly rather than through APCWS, so Greene joined Pamplin Park in June 1995 and the Museum of the Civil War Soldier opened in 1999.

Additional properties were acquired, so that now Pamplin Park has four museums, four historic structures, 2,800 linear feet of the main Confederate line, three miles of interpretive trails and 10 reconstructed buildings on 422 acres, as well as an extensive artifact collection in an award-winning museum.