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Kennesaw Mountain Park May Get Long-Awaited Expansion

February 23rd, 2016

The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to consider a resolution on Wednesday that would add eight acres to Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park that include a hill and a very old house.

Andrew Kalat / flickr.com/akalat

A decade-long effort to expand Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park may be getting closer to succeeding. The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to consider a resolution on Wednesday that would add eight acres to the park that include a hill and a very old house.

The Wallis House was a two-bedroom farmstead that Union General Oliver O. Howard used as his headquarters during the battle of Kennesaw Mountain. General William Tecumseh Sherman was also stationed there just before the battle, said Nancy Walther, superintendent of Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.

Adding the house would add perspective, said Walther, since in the past the park was focused more on the Confederate point of view.

“We’ve been working really hard to change that, and incorporate more of the whole story – the Union line as well as the Confederate line,” she said. “So when school kids come out to the park, not only can they hike to the top of Kennesaw Mountain and understand the Confederate side of the story, but then they can also go to Wallis House and hike up to Harriston Hill and look out and understand the Union side.”

Walther said Cobb County, with help from nonprofits, saved the old house more than 10 years ago, but before the county can donate it to the park, Congress has to approve expanding the park’s boundaries.

Georgia Congressman Barry Loudermilk introduced the U.S. House resolution that would do that.

Walther said there have been previous attempts to expand the boundaries that haven’t made it through Congress, but she has high hopes this time it will happen. If it does, the Wallis House would need a lot of work before the public could use it.

“It’s pretty dilapidated, it’s very run down,” said Walther. “We’ve had some vagrants through there, so you can only imagine the inside is pretty torn up as well. It’s kind of a jungle actually trying to get to the house, and it’s a little spooky walking inside.”

Another House resolution, also scheduled for Wednesday, would officially change the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site to the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park. That resolution was introduced by Georgia Congressman John Lewis.