Historic Westville hits a ‘snag’ on the road to Columbus
The movement of the first structure from Historic Westville from Lumpkin, Ga., to the attraction’s new home in south Columbus has hit a snag in the road that threatens to delay it several weeks.
The 1850s-era living history museum said Monday that it has yet to receive a necessary permit to relocate the roughly 200-year-old Wells House through a mere two-tenths of a mile portion of Stewart County, where Westville has been located since opening a half-century ago.
(Westville considers moving to Columbus)
(Westville’s relocation of historic house could take place in two weeks)
“We hit a snag with two-tenths of a mile of Stewart County road, basically from our gate to the city limits of the City of Lumpkin,” said Darby Britto, Historic Westville’s public relations and marketing director. “We have our City of Lumpkin move permits, we have state permits, and everything that we need from Muscogee County-Columbus Consolidated Government.”
Britto said the latest delay in moving the Wells House to a 35-acre site near Oxbow Meadows Environmental Learning Center materialized suddenly when the structure’s moving company was told that its application to do the work was not completed fully. The request for a permit was denied at a recent Stewart County Commission meeting, with Historic Westville and the mover asked to appear at a June 6 commission work session to answer more questions.
“We believe that they did have a copy of the Lumpkin city permits, which answered the questions that they had. But they denied it,” said Britto, noting Westville is attempting to work with Stewart County and its manager Mac Moye to resolve the issue. “We’re not even sure what the fee will be because that’s not in the rules and regulations we were given. We can assume it’s a fee comparable to what we paid everywhere else.”
Complicating matters, Britto said, is that the state moving permit that the nonprofit tourist and educational attraction obtained from the state of Georgia is set to expire on Wednesday. It took about 10 days to get that permit the first time. She said the process with Stewart County has generated a “little confusion.”
Reached Monday at his office, county manager Moye said the county commission has a permitting process in place, with it using a building permit application that has a spot on it for listing the movement of buildings and structures. He said the fee for the relocation has not been determined, however.
Moye also said that Westville’s moving company representative came into the office the morning of the recent commission meeting, with the request put on the agenda that day even though it usually is set a week ahead.
“The commission took it up that afternoon and reviewed her application and correctly determined that she had not filled out the application fully,” he said. “So they asked on the one hand for Westville to fill out a complete application, and also to come to a work session that we’re going to be holding on June 6, at which time we can discuss and find out what they are planning to do in the larger picture, because they’re talking about moving multiple buildings, and how that’s going to affect the zoning of the property whenever it’s finally vacated.”
Moye is a former director of Historic Westville from 1979 to 2005. He also has been a vocal critic of the relocation of the village to Columbus, calling it both a cultural and economic loss for Stewart County area. The county itself has fewer than 5,000 residents. He denied Monday that he is bringing any personal feelings into the official county government business.
“My personal opinions about what Westville is doing are well known, and I have acknowledged that,” he said. “On the other hand, anyone that knows me, and that includes the executive director up there, knows that fair play is extremely important to me. It would not even occur to me to obstruct Westville in some fashion. This permit is something that has to go through the commission. I actually consider myself as facilitating it because, like I said, we didn’t have to put it on the meeting agenda. We could have delayed it.”
Asked if a moving permit could be granted prior to the June 6 commission work session, Moye said he didn’t see how that could occur. He said simply that more information — and a completed permit application — are needed from Westville and its movers.
“From everything I’ve been able to determine from the commissioners and the county attorneys, they need to come and tell us their plans,” he said. “The people have told us that moving buildings will obstruct traffic in the local area, so we want to find out how that’s going to impact us. We don’t know. It’s more a matter of gathering information and getting an understanding of what’s going on ... Let me put it another way, if they had applied two months ago, we would not be having this conversation. It would have been worked out.”
Britto acknowledged that planning and now working to execute the relocation of Historic Westville to Columbus has been like “a thousand moving parts.” That includes an earlier attempt to move the Wells House, with it called off in early May because a Columbus Water Works sewer project on South Lumpkin Road had not progressed far enough to make the structure’s passage possible.
When it does occur, the route that movers plan to take the structure is expected to be U.S. Highway 27 through Fort Benning to Columbus, with a left turn onto Fort Benning Road, right onto Torch Hill Road, then left onto South Lumpkin.
The Wells House dates to the early 1800s and is actually a log cabin inside with a shed. It is believed to have been constructed and lived in originally by Yuchi Indians, according to Westville. The Wells family later added on to the structure and occupied the house for more than 100 years.
The village of Westville opened in 1966, with it receiving various buildings from Jonesboro, Ga. The collection grew to nearly three dozen structures, which are being relocated from just over 80 acres in Lumpkin to about 35 acres off South Lumpkin Road. The cost of the move, funded by a capital campaign, is $9.5 million. The attraction is shooting to open by late 2018.
Being developed in four phases, Historic Westville in Columbus will include the traditional 1850s-era village, a Creek Indian settlement, a rural plantation farm, a frontier settlement, and an interpretive center to include entertainment.
Despite the current permit delay, Britto said Historic Westville and its staff are confident that everything will be worked out and on schedule for that 2018 opening.
“The move is going to happen and we are going to open and it’s going to be fabulous. We’re nothing if not scrappy and determined,” she said.
This story was originally published May 15, 2017 at 1:48 PM with the headline "Historic Westville hits a ‘snag’ on the road to Columbus."