Its a register to read site ...... so heres the article if you dont want to register.
The article also mentions a Spanish Fort being located in the area. Hmmmm.......maybe some Spanish gold is there waiting to be dug.
Road race course is subject of hearing
By WILLIAM KEESLER
The Dispatch
SPENCER | Development is colliding with history again at the Trading Ford of the Yadkin River.
Entrepreneurs will take their request for a conditional-use permit for a two-mile road-racing course near the closed North Carolina Finishing Co. plant Monday night to the Rowan County Board of Commissioners.
David Risdon, a Boston investment banker who owns the former factory, said his proposed High Rock International Raceway could attract 500,000 to 600,000 visitors a year and inject $100 million into the economies of Rowan and Davidson counties.
But a preservationist contends the project would destroy part of a Civil War battlefield, undermine efforts to preserve other historic sites in the Trading Ford area and dash hopes of ever creating a major regional tourism attraction there.
"To lose it now would be an unbelievable travesty," said Salisbury resident Ann Brownlee, founder and president of the Trading Ford Historic District Preservation Association. "You can put a racetrack anywhere. Civil War battlefields don't grow on trees."
Risdon, who bought the finishing plant in 2000 after Color-Tex shut it down, and Frank McGuire, a former Connecticut policeman who headed security at the plant, are partners in North Carolina Warehouse LLC.
They want to put a 2.2- to 2.3-mile road-course track on a 130-acre parcel across Highway 29-70 from the factory building as well as a race team performance center, guest cottages, a restaurant and an RV campground on the 60-acre factory site. They recently sold three acres of the factory site to Rowan County-based Aurora Motorsports, which plans to open a 5,200-square-foot race shop and showroom there, Risdon said.
He said he is also talking with other motorsports businesses who are considering opening similar facilities but who want to see whether the road course gets a permit. Because the soil and ground water at the site is contaminated with a long list of hazardous solvents and metals, he also needs a brownfields agreement with the state to develop the property.
Risdon originally also proposed a country club-like facility with chalets for sports car owners. He since has backed away from that idea, he said, because country club members would have to compete with out-of-town car clubs on weekends for use of the track. Also, the site's industrial zoning would not allow residential use. However, the track may sell memberships to owners wanting to race their cars on Tuesday and Thursday nights, Risdon said.
The Trading Ford, a four-mile stretch of the Yadkin River between Rowan and Davidson counties, has been the location of a prehistoric Native American village, colonial trading paths, fords, ferries, bridges, Revolutionary and Civil War battlefields and possibly a Spanish fort, among other things. In April 1865, an estimated 1,000 to 1,200 Confederates on York Hill on the Davidson County side of the river repulsed an attack by Union troops under Gen. George Stoneman on the Rowan side.
For several years, Brownlee has led an effort to protect the historic sites from a massive Interstate 85 road-widening and bridge-construction project, which has now been delayed. She also objects to a newly proposed expansion of Duke Power's Buck Steam Station, which she said would destroy the major ford that gives the area its name, as well as one of two Revolutionary War sites.
In 2003 the Davidson County and Rowan County boards of commissioners both passed resolutions asking that the interstate project be built in a way that would leave the area eligible for protection by the National Register of Historic Places. The National Register is now reviewing the area.
When Risdon was deciding what to do with the finishing plant site, he gave only brief thought to developing the Trading Ford entirely as an area for historical tourism. "I've never felt that was commercially feasible," he said. "We thought about it, but we didn't go very far down that road."
There is potential, however, to preserve some historical aspects of the area in conjunction with the race course, Risdon said. He has met with Brownlee and has offered to provide land for a museum and to allow public access to the first bridge across the river, the 1818 Beard Bridge, if it were rebuilt.
"I think that this is an excellent opportunity to emphasize the history of the area, and we're willing to do that," Risdon said.
In early April, Brownlee indicated a willingness to keep talking with Risdon, but after learning more about the project, she said she now wants the Rowan commissioners to deny the conditional-use permit. She fears the road course will so damage the land that National Register eligibility will be denied, and it will become easier for the I-85 and Bucks Steam Station projects to proceed.
"It greatly diminishes the potential of what we can do," Brownlee said.
Monday's hearing is expected to begin about 7:30 p.m. at the county building at 130 W. Innes St., Salisbury. Risdon said he expects a large crowd of car enthusiasts to attend.
