Hysterical preservation.(Scan)

Each spring, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the grumpy grand-daddy of America's historical preservation organizations, releases a list of America's "most endangered historical places." While 2004's list includes a few worthy sites, such as Detroit's once lovely Madison-Lenox Hotel and a Utah canyon full of Native American art, most of this year's 11-item index represents a triumph of politics over common sense and aesthetic merit.

Historic preservation itself isn't a bad idea: Americans should be thankful that citizens, governments, and organizations like the Trust saved once-endangered places like Independence Hall, Washington, D.C.'s Union Station, and even the iconic gates that led to Chicago's Union Stockyards. But the Trust now seems to view the United States as a giant museum where no builder or developer should ever change anything.

Case in point: The state of Vermont--all 9,600 square miles of it--tops the Trust's ranking of endangered places. The Trust's justification is that Wal-Mart, which has operated throughout the state for 11 years, plans to expand some of its existing locations into Supercenters that include grocery stores. According to the Trust, six new stores will utterly transform Vermont and destroy its "unique sense of place."

Even if this did happen--and the Trust provides no evidence that it would--the busybodies who compiled the list can't seem to see that the stores won't have any effect unless Vermonters vote with their pocketbooks ...