‘Bloody Sunday’ bridge in Alabama among new national landmarks

WASHINGTON - An Alabama bridge that was the site of the “Bloody Sunday� civil rights march, an Oklahoma battlefield where “Native Americans fought as members of both Union and Confederate armies,� and a Kentucky distillery that operated before, during and after Prohibition are among the latest national historic landmarks.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Monday announced the addition of 13 sites to a list of 2,540 landmarks, declaring that the largely honorary designations will “help tell the story of America.�

Among the new landmarks is the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., where on March 7, 1965, law enforcement officers beat civil rights marchers. Outrage over the violence helped create a groundswell for passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The landmarks are “nationally significant historic places� designated by the Interior secretary “because they possess exceptional value or quality in illustrating or interpreting the heritage of the United States,� the National Park Service said.

Other new landmarks include:

-- George T. Stagg Distillery in Kentucky. “It provides an unparalleled opportunity to study at one site the evolution of buildings and technology associated with the American whiskey industry,� the Interior Department said.

-- Hinchliffe Stadium in New Jersey. The stadium is an example of a Negro League baseball stadium in 20th century segregated America.

-- Honey Springs Battlefield in Oklahoma. This was the site of “the largest Civil War engagement of the 1861-65 period of conflict within Indian Territory,� the department said. “It is also significant as the first and largest engagement in which Indian troops of both sides fought in the formalized style of Anglo-American warfare.�

-- Old San Juan Historic District/Distrito Histórico del Viejo San Juan in Puerto Rico. This portion of the city is “the only existing representation of an almost 400-year-old Spanish colonial city in the United States,� according to the department.

-- Camp Nelson Historic and Archeological District. The site in Kentucky is described as one of the nation’s largest recruitment and training centers for African American soldiers during the Civil War.

-- The Hartford, Conn., home of abolitionist and author Harriet Beecher Stowe. The home is associated with her later career as a reformer on issues relating to the family and women.

-- Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. The site is described as “one of the country’s oldest artists’ retreats.� Yaddo has hosted more than 6,000 influential writers, visual artists and composers who “shaped and imprinted American culture with a distinct national identity in the 20th century,� the Interior Department said.

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