Mill Springs Battlefield has long been considered a historical landmark in Pulaski County. But sometime in the future, it may become more than that.

Think Mill Springs Battlefield National Park.

During Tuesday's [April 2009] Pulaski County Fiscal Court meeting, Gilbert Wilson, the director of the Mill Springs Battlefield Association, presented Pulaski CountyJudge-executive Barty Bullock and the magistrates a resolution in which the court would request that the federal government establish the battlefield as a national park.

"The county government has been really great to us," Wilson said after the meeting. "But we can't indefinitely depend on them to help us."

Wilson said the request comes after two or three years of consideration over the move.

The Battlefield Association was created in 1992 to help protect and interpret the Mill Springs battlefield, and since then the association has acquired more than 450 acres of battlefield land from private owners, built a 10,000 square-foot visitors' center and museum in Nancy, and restored and preserved two Civil War-era homes in Wayne County.

The association also undertook the expansion of a national register boundary to create a 10-mile corridor encompassing the entire battlefield, began providing reenactments and educational programs for the public and developed several miles of interpretive trails for visitors.

Despite those expansions and improvements, "the preservation, interpretation and educational effort of the Association has reached beyond the resources of the Association and local government to support itself and to fulfill its original goals," according to the resolution.

"We think we've got the battlefield in the position that for the National Park Service to take it over, it'd be pretty easy to run with it," Wilson said.

And the battlefield - marking the site of the January 19, 1862 battle that is considered the first major Civil War victory in the West for the Union Army - would need to be handed over should the federal government decide to deem it a national park.

The Mill Springs Battlefield Association would remain a friend of the Battlefield organization after the transition.

"Mill Springs Battlefield has grown to be a major tourist stop in southern Kentucky and needs to take the next step in its development," stated a press release from the association.

Wilson said the association is also seeking support from local organizations and schools in taking the step toward establishing the battlefield a national park.

"This is going to be a four or five year process," Wilson said.

Wilson emphasized that the park became what it is today through support from the fiscal court and other local entities.

Still, for the park to grow, funding that isn't possible through the association alone, Wilson said.

"Everybody's been real positive," Wilson said about reaction to the resolution.

The Pulaski County Fiscal Court approved the resolution.