Design of the $322,000 Crossing of the Dan exhibit to be installed at The Prizery is nearing completion. It's time to proceed with the construction and installation. But moving ahead will take more money.

South Boston Town Council came to the project's rescue Monday, moving $13,500 from the Crossing of the Dan Economic Development line item to the Crossing of the Dan Grant line item.

The infusion of cash will be used to complete the narratives and graphic design for the exhibit by December, according to South Boston Town Manager Ted Daniel.

Barbara Bass, president of the Halifax County Historical Society, said the exhibit committee in cooperation with the town has raised $92,000 for the exhibit. Several grant proposals for the construction and installation phase are under evaluation by funding agencies and other proposals are being prepared.

"This is probably the most important thing we will do in this community for a long time and the benefit will be in both economic development and the sharing of an important story of the American Revolution in the South," Bass said.

"We can't have anything less professional than the exhibits at Guilford Courthouse and Yorktown. This will be a lasting exhibit on the par with a national park."

The Crossing of the Dan exhibit will depict a turning point in the American Revolution, Gen. Nathanael Greene's crossing of the swollen Dan River at South Boston.  Greene used all available boats to make the crossing, leaving the pursuing British under Gen. Charles Cornwallis stranded on the south side. Cornwallis was forced to retreat south to resupply.

The strategic action by Greene, known as The Race to the Dan, played a central role in setting up the defeat of the British at Yorktown.

"If Gen. Greene had not been able to stop Cornwallis, he would have gone right across and taken Washington's army, and you and I would have been drinking tea this afternoon," Bass said.

In October, Bass asked Halifax County for $50,000. She acknowledged she may have come on too strong in her pitch last month to the county supervisors.

Bass, however, has at least three reasons for the urgency of her appeal for funds:

She wants to share the seldom-told story of the historic crossing with the region and the world.

She's in a race to complete funding and installation of the exhibit in 2007 in order to capitalize on statewide tourist promotion of the 2007 anniversary of the founding of the Jamestown settlement.

She's crunched the numbers and believes that the $322,000 exhibit can have a significant economic impact on the area.

Bass bases her economic impact projections on the impact a similar project at Guilford Courthouse, where Cornwallis' army was severely wounded before the final defeat at Yorktown. Guilford Courthouse has an exhibit planned by Fruland & Bowles and created by Project Arts and Ideas, the firms responsible for the South Boston exhibit.

She said the Guilford Courthouse exhibit in 2003 drew half a million visitors, generated more than $23 million in income to shops, restaurants and other businesses in the community, and generated 604 full- and part-time jobs.

"If we do 10 percent of that, we will bring in 50,000 people," Bass said.

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