Stop Wal-Mart

I got that too Eric. I live approx. 15-18 miles or so from The Wilderness and I can drive past THREE other Wal-Marts on the way there!!!! Each one is within one exit of one another!!!

While I am most assuredly a proponent of the free-market, I share your dislike for these corporations. Wal-Mart moved into our area and killed the downtown Mom and Pop shops.

I feel the same way about the McDonalds’, Burger Kings, etc. “Chain-mania” has so homogenized our country and culture that you often can’t tell the difference from one part of the country to the other, at least when driving through the by-passes.

I truly miss the uniqueness of the cities and towns of the various parts of the U.S. Each had so much to offer 25-40 years ago in regards to variety.

I’m starting to think that Wal-Mart has outsourced its PR department as well as its manufacturing to the People’s Republic of China. In April, under intense media pressure, they finally had to back down from suing Debbie Shank for the money the company contractually paid for her care after she was brain-damaged in a a traffic accident. You’ll remember that Mrs. Shank lost all of her short-term memory in the accident, and thus mourned anew every day for her son, recently killed in Iraq. Just a few weeks ago, whistle-blowers alleged that Wal-Mart executives were pressuring employees to vote Republican this fall. And now this. Perhaps the Waltons’ hubris is finally catching up with them. It’s hard to be hopeful though–in the nineties I watched with horror as a local government in Georgia approve a K-Mart superstore that now sets on top of a Confederate cemetery.

I’m sure most of you will find this dataflow map to be quite interesting or should I say disturbing: http://projects.flowingdata.com/walmart/

“The latest atrocity by Wal-Mart is probably the most unforgivable of all”? Surely you are engaging in hyperbole here, Eric. Not that this is not terrible, but there are many things that rank higher on the list of terrible things this company does and has done than building a store on a historically signficant property. Ken just described but one of them.

would any of you people gripe and moan and raise the same stink if target,costco,high cost ufcw union grocery stores wanted to build in the same spot?of course not.get off your trip about walmart killing mom and mom stores.how does walmart kill mom and pop stores folks when walmart has no control or say in what mom and pop stores charge for goods?you folks are fed the same ufcw union and govt propaganda and tired old garbage.all your favorite stores folkshave done things far worse than and have treated workers far worse than walmart has ever been accused of.why dont you folks go pick on all the fast food joints instead and leave wm alone.

Well, I’m no fan of Wal-Mart, but I do shop there. As for how does Wal-Mart kill off the Mom and Pop stores. It’s called competition and buying power. My family owned a small mom and pop hardware store before a Wal-Mart came in the town. Afterwards, they struggled, but continued to find a niche in the market. Eventually they sold out. The new owners lasted about 3 years. Once all the mom and pops went out of business. The prices at the Wal-Mart started to rise. I have seen where the same item in two different Wal-Mart stores, 30 miles apart, would be prices as much as 60% higher in the store were there was no competition. The new stores are loss leaders until the competition is gone.

Hi, Eric! I looked and looked for an email address on your site and couldn’t find one. Would you please email me about possibly reviewing a book on your site that takes place during the civil war? Thanks! ~Trish

Walmart is the lowest of employers and doesn’t deserve to be anywhere on this planet.
Walmart is the cancer of business. Its legacy will forever be an unfair, selfish retailer that will sell out a countries manufacturing jobs just so it can bring in slave labour goods from China.

Wal Mart was founded in Arkansas, a center of Yankee greed. So much for historical accuracy.

Why, depsite the mountain of evidence to the contrary, do people like Michael Shandrick continue to push the tariff aguement?

Moses Austin’s request for a land grant was to the Spanish government. While it was granted, Moses died and Stephen took over the project. In the interim, The Mexican Revolution of 1821 occurred and Stephen had to obtain a second grant, for the same land, from Mexican officials.

First, let me say, any comments I make here or on other blog sites are as a reformed Confederate apologist. I, too, once accepted generally held, but historically inaccurate, beliefs in much the same way as Mr. Shandrick. Then, I became a history teacher! I am a native Texan able to trace ancestry to a veteran of the Texas Revolution of 1836 who fought at San Jacinto. I have a great-great grandfather who served in the Confederate army. That being said, on two accounts I’m not blowing smoke up anybody’s hindquarters. Both personally and professionally I’m interested in this. But as a former journalist (I was a newspaper editor and publisher before I became a teacher), I am also interested in accuracy. That is the reason I’m a reformed Confederate apologist.

Sources for additional information in my previous posts can be found at the following sites and in the following books.

A brief biography of Philip Nolan by noted Texas historian Archie P. McDonald in his syndicated column “All Things Historical” can be viewed at http://www.texasescapes.com/AllThingsHistorical/PhilipNolanAM703.htm.

A good biography of Moses Austin is D.B. Gracy, II’s Moses Austin: His Life published by Trinity University Press in 1987. Additionally, Moses was born in Connecticut and later moved to Virginia. So, if the tariff was truly what the Austins were against by establishing a colony in Texas, isn’t that a little hypocritical given Moses’ actual birthplace? (Of course, as “Billy Yank” points out, this comment ignores the mounds of historical evidence against the tariff argument as a cause of the Civil War. James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom is a secondary source that bears this out well.)

A brief biography and links to several letters by Stephen Austin are available at the Texas State Library & Archives Commission webpage http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/treasures/giants/austin/austin-01.html.

The Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819 and France’s and Spain’s swapping of Louisiana and Texas can be found in several good histories of the United States. The Oxford Companion to United States History by Paul S. Boyer is one that discusses the treaty’s impact on both United States and Texas history.

While this has become an effort to set the record straight as to why Moses and Stephen Austin established a colony in Texas, I’ll say this about battlefield preservation. Any battlefield, from any war, contains so much area associated with it that if we halted all development because of this there would be little development to be had, particularly on the eastern coast of the United States where three major wars of our history have occurred. I’m not saying battlefield preservation isn’t important. What I am saying is that we need to temper our desire to preserve these things with the knowledge that we cannot preserve all of it, but we should focus on the most important parts of the battlefields where fighting actually took place. We would do well to follow the example of all good generals in choosing the time and place of our engagement rather than letting our opponents do it for us.

Over commercialization is a problem in this country and Wal-Mart is a prime culprit. From the comments, it seems that many have more problems with Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. rather than the actual planned development of the area. Mr. Aubrecht points out that three Wal-Marts exist along the route to this area. That would seem to be poor marketing on Wal-Mart’s part, not to mention the reason for so much ire from locals and history lovers everywhere – no matter whom it’s directed at, Wal-Mart or the developers. Bill Quinn’s book is a good one, but Mr. Quinn (with whom I have conversed with on the phone on several occasions and have a deep respect for) and many others totally ignore the corporate nature of all such endeavors that Mr. Williams alludes to in his post above. While we cannot save everything, we must, as historians, researchers, teachers and history lovers endeavor to prevent the most egregious mismanagement of these site, ones like in Georgia of which Mr. Noe speaks.