1. S USQUEHANNA H ERITAGE PARK
A MASTER PLAN …
… to CONNECT &
SHARE OUR
STORIES with
town, country and the
places beyond …
a p en n s y lv an ia co r p o r atio n
with with
albertinvernon & Jones Battaglia
architecture LLC Landscape Architects

2. S USQUEHANNA H ERITAGE PARK
Agenda
1. Introduction
2. Public Input – What We’ve Heard
Public Input Session 1, Steering Committee & Key
Person Interviews
1. Review park & interpretive concept plans
 Regional Connectivity
 Overall Concept Plan
 Park Concept Plans
2. Receive feedback on park & Interpretive
concept plans
3. Next Steps a p en n s y lv an ia co r p o r atio n
with with
albertinvernon & Jones Battaglia
architecture LLC Landscape Architects

3. S USQUEHANNA H ERITAGE PARK
Area Being Studied
Parcel Owner Acres
1 Wilton Meadows Nature Lancaster County 40
Preserve Conservancy
2 Highpoint Scenic Vista and County of York 79
Recreation Area
3 Native Lands County Park County of York 96
4 Klines Run Park Safe Harbor Water Power 48
Corporation
5 Zimmerman Center for Susquehanna Gateway 2
Heritage Heritage Area

4. Our Process - 3 simple questions...
 Where are we now?
- today
 Where do we want to be?
- 10-20 years
 How do we get there?
- Immediate, Short, Mid & Long Term
Implementation Strategies

5. S USQUEHANNA H ERITAGE PARK
What We’ve Heard
 Respect the peacefulness and tranquility of the neighbors
 Respect the landscape – low impact on resources
 Meet the needs of locals and visitors to the area & to the parks
 Expand passive recreation opportunities
 Concern for pedestrian and bicycle safety along Long Level
Road
 Tell the stories of the River, Land, and Man
 Incorporate art into the parks
 Connect the parks to the Rivertowns
 Encourage & promote local economic activity
What’s our story?

6. The river, as a
metaphor for life:
The choices we make,
the lessons we learn from it, and
the legacies we leave behind.

7. Regional Connectivity Concept
Susquehanna RiverLands Conservation
Landscape Initiative (CLI)
• National Recreation Trails
- Captain John Smith Water Trail
- Lower Susquehanna River Trail
- Mason Dixon Trail
• Rivertowns
- Columbia, Wrightsville, Marietta
• Collection of National Register of Historic Places
Native American Archeological Sites
• Conejohela Flats Important Bird Area
- Susquehanna River Flyway
• Cultural Resources
- Lincoln Highway
- National Watch & Clock Museum, Marietta
Art House, Historic Wrightsville Museum,
- Wright’s Ferry Mansion
- Zimmerman Center for Heritage
- Columbia, Wrightsville, Marietta
- Blue Rock Heritage Center
- Indian Steps Museum

8. • Existing Trails
- Captain John Smith Water Trail Regional Connectivity Concept
- Lower Susquehanna River Trail
- Atlantic Coast Bicycle Route
- Bicycle PA Route S
- Mason Dixon Trail
- Northwest River Trail
- Native Lands Trail
- Chickies Rock Trail
• Proposed Trails
- Susquehanna & Tidewater Canal Trail
(Long Level Trail)
- East Prospect Borough Connector Trail
- Northwest River Trail Extension
- Atglen-Susquehanna Trail
- Turkey Hill Trail Extension
- Little Chiques Trail
• Rivertowns & Main Streets
- Columbia, Wrightsville, Marietta
• Parks
- Samuel Lewis State Park
- Wrightsville Riverfront Park
- Marietta Riverfront Park
- Columbia Borough Riverfront Park
- Lock 2
- Klines Run Park
- Native Lands County Park
- Highpoint Scenic Vista and Recreation Area
- Wilton Meadows Nature Preserve

9. Visitation Figures
Location 2010 2011
Samuel Lewis State Park 104,028 111,652
Klines Run Park 139,712 147,813
Highpoint Scenic Vista & Recreation Area * 36,327 36,327
Lock 2 268,789 261,864
* Collected in 2008

10. S USQUEHANNA H ERITAGE PARK
1
2
3
4
5

11. S USQUEHANNA H ERITAGE PARK
Local Connectivity Plan
• Hiking Trails
- Mason Dixon Trail from Wrightsville
Riverfront Park to Lock 2 - existing
1
- East Prospect Borough Connector Trail –
proposed
- Native Lands Trails – existing
- Wilton Meadows Nature Trails – proposed
• Bike Routes
2
- PA Bicycle Route S – along State Route 462 -
existing
- Atlantic Coast Bike Route – along State
Route 624 – existing
• Shared Use Path - proposed
- Susquehanna & Tidewater Canal Trail (Long
Level Trail) Wrightsville Riverfront Park to
Lock 2, primarily parallel to River
3
• Lower Susquehanna River Water Trail -
existing
- Wayfinding to and from Susquehanna 4
5
Heritage Park - proposed

12. “The aim of interpretation is not instruction, it is provocation.”
Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage

13. Lessons from the people who are most successful at getting their
messages across.
Apple’s think different ads didn’t say a word about computers; they used iconic graphic images to
associate their product with stories we already knew about people who charted their own course.
Customers bought Apple’s computers so they could chart their own course.

14. LESSONS FROM
THE
SUSQUEHANNA
What lessons can we learn from the people who are drawn to this river?
Why did the first people come here?
Did the fertility of this land near the river contribute to their success?
Did they move from village to village because they exhausted the land they needed to support them ?
Did the palisaded villages they built to defend themselves exhaust their human capital?
Why did they disappear?
Why did other people follow them here?
What lessons did John Smith learn when he sailed up the Susquehanna in 1608?
What stories about these free people did John Smith and others who followed him take back home?
Could those stories have influenced their thinking about what it means to be free?
Is that story part of this land’s legacy too?
Why did others follow John Smith to the banks of this river?
What did the Cresaps and the Wrights and the Latrobes and all the men and women who followed them do here?
Why did they build ferries and bridges and canals and railroads and highways over & along the banks of this river?
Why did some of their industries succeed?
Why did some of them fail?
Why are people still drawn to this river?
What lessons can they learn from us?
What lessons can we learn from them?
What lessons can we learn from all the people who are drawn to this river?

15. LEGACIES
ON THE
SUSQUEHANNA
1,000 years ago
ancient people left marks
on the rocks
in the center of this river.
What marks will we leave
for people to admire
1,000 years from now?

16. LESSONS & LEGACIES FROM
THE SUSQUEHANNA
Central Purpose and Message
The Susquehanna Heritage Park will serve as a Gateway to the Susquehanna
Region, and will use a variety of interpretive media to share the lessons we can
learn from the legacies left by people drawn to the banks of this river -from its
earliest inhabitants to its most recent occupants.
Subthemes:
1. Why does the river draw people to this region (e.g. landscape painters).
2. What lessons can we learn from the choices they made? (why did they paint
the way they did, what does that tell us about the evolution of our
democracy?)
3. What will our legacies be? (what will we do, based on our understanding of
their art?)

17. Highpoint Scenic Vista & Recreation Area
Gateway to the Susquehanna’s Heritage
Lesson: Residents and visitors are introduced to the significant stories about the people, places and
events that influenced this region’s natural, cultural and architectural heritage
Media: existing trail that climbs the hill, with locally quarried limestone markers set in the trail
inscribed with iconic graphic symbols (glyphs) representing the regions historically significant sites.
For example, the wiggly snake (a universal symbol for knowledge) that aligns with the solstices at
the Shenk’s Ferry petroglyphs will be used as the icon for that site.
When they reach the summit (physically and intellectually), visitors will have been introduced to all
of the region’s attractions, many of them visible to them on the horizon. The iconic glyphs -with QR
codes embedded in the stones- will now function as mnemonic and wayfinding devices to help
visitors find and learn more about the sites on apps, brochures and entrance signs.
Legacy: existing hillside monument enhanced with iconic graphic markers that help visitors learn
about, find, and remember local and regional heritage sites.

18. Concept Plan 1 – Highpoint Scenic Vista & Recreation Area

19. Concept Plan 1 – Highpoint Scenic Vista & Recreation Area

20. Concept Plan 2 – Highpoint Scenic Vista & Recreation Area

21. Concept Plan 1 – Highpoint Scenic Vista & Recreation Area

22. Wilton Meadows
Lesson: Visitors will learn what happens when current residents make a conscience decision to
help an undeveloped site to return to its natural state.
Media: land art associated with reforestation of steep hillside with native grasses, trees, shrubs
and flowering plants along existing trail made accessible for local residents and walk on visitors
Legacy: a reforested site with habitat that supports native fauna

23. Concept Plan 1 – Wilton Meadows Nature Preserve

24. Concept Plan 2 – Wilton Meadows Nature Preserve
Concept Plan 2 – Wilton Meadows Nature Preserve

25. Concept – Native Wildflower Meadow

26. Klines Run Interpretive Center
Lesson: The visitors center will showcase the Visions on the Susquehanna collection of art that
describes the changes in the evolution of democracy in America through the eyes of master
painters, whose paintings of the Susquehanna mirror our own cultural evolution, from the
sublime early days of our democracy to the critical expressions modern painters use to express
contemporary social and political points of view
Primary Media: Visions on the Susquehanna exhibit, new 3 dimensional art (sculpture)
commissioned for the site to extend that concept into the landscape, replica of the petroglyphs
showing earliest known art associated with this region, children’s play area that uses local themes
to help children understand that the choices they make will impact the landscape we all live in
Legacy: world class art exhibits, sculpture garden, playground

27. Concept Plan 1 – Native Lands, Klines Run & Zimmerman Center

28. Concept Plan 1 – Native Lands, Klines Run & Zimmerman Center

29. Klines Run Interpretive Center & Natural Play
Environment

30. Concept Plan 1 – Native Lands, Klines Run & Zimmerman Center

31. Native Lands County Park
(lower Liebhart site)
Lesson: Visitors will learn what happened before and after the Susquehannocks made contact
with Europeans, and how the choices they made may have influenced the outcome of both of
their societies.
Media: pow wows, storytellers, apps, longhouse replica, story (totem) pole, plantings of crops and
plants and gardens used by native people, with existing grass trail along location of palisaded
village made accessible for local residents and visitors
Legacy: a culturally sacred and archaeologically significant National Register of Historic Places
site left largely undisturbed except for low impact usage by Native Americans that maintains and
preserves those qualities for future benefit

32. Concept Plan 1 – Native Lands, Klines Run & Zimmerman Center

33. Concept Plan 1 – Native Lands, Klines Run & Zimmerman Center

34. Concept Plan 2 – Native Lands, Klines Run & Zimmerman Center

35. Concept Plan 2 – Native Lands, Klines Run & Zimmerman Center

36. Concept Plan 2 – Native Lands, Klines Run & Zimmerman Center

37. Concept Plan 2 – Native Lands, Klines Run & Zimmerman Center

38. farmstead ruins &
Dritt cemetery
Lesson: Where we learn about early settlers subsistence form of living and how that choice is
disappearing from the landscape
Media: ruins of agrarian farmstead, agricultural buildings, cartways, cemetary and landscape
features interpreted through signage, apps and brochures
Legacy: a developed site that will over time return to its natural state

39. Native Lands County Park

40. Zimmerman Center
Lesson: Where we learn how buildings and landscapes can be repurposed in a way that preserves
the architectural and cultural heritage while giving them new life for the foreseeable future
Media: restored and repurposed homestead, interpreted through exhibits, signage, apps and
brochures
Legacy: restoration of a significant piece of local history that functions as a center for
preserving, promoting and improving access to local and regional heritage focused on the
Susquehanna

41. 3 rivertowns
Lesson: Visitors learn about and are given the opportunity to experience the conscience choices
people are making in urbanized settings (Wrightsville, Marietta & Columbia) to preserve and
revitalize their communities though commerce, tourism and the arts
Primary media: outdoor art (sculptures and murals), exhibits, photography, galleries, culinary
arts, videography, lectures
Legacy: 3 revitalized communities

42. 3 rivertowns

43. S USQUEHANNA H ERITAGE PARK
Public Input Process
Ground Rules
• Every idea is valid; Please respect the • Please remain quiet while someone
opinions of others. else is talking; Everyone will have a
chance to speak.
• You do not have to agree with every
idea that is suggested; Even if you • Please keep your statements as clear
don’t agree, this is not the time to and concise as possible.
debate a specific item.
• Convey one issue per turn.
• Groups – Please have a spokesperson
speak for the entire group. • Please respect the time limit.
Parking Lot
• Moderator can ‘park’ comments for later discussion

44. S USQUEHANNA H ERITAGE PARK
Next Steps
1. Meeting with Steering Committee and Partners
to discuss and refine concepts into Master
Plan, mid Fall.
2. Refine draft recommendations &
implementation strategies.
3. Meeting with Steering Committee and Partners
to review draft master
plan, recommendations, & implementation
Strategies late Fall.
4. Public Meeting to present & receive feedback on
draft master plan recommendations &
implementation strategies, Early Winter.
5. Finalize master plan, recommendations, and
implementation strategies.
a p en n s y lv an ia co r p o r atio n
with with
albertinvernon & Jones Battaglia
architecture LLC Landscape Architects

45. S USQUEHANNA H ERITAGE PARK
Project Contact:
Mr. John Buerkle, RLA, AICP
Vice President
Pashek Associates
619 East Ohio Street Pittsburgh, PA 15212
412-321-6362
jbuerkle@pashekla.com
a p en n s y lv an ia co r p o r atio n
with with
albertinvernon & Jones Battaglia
architecture LLC Landscape Architects