Historic Boundaries PH OTO BY PATR I CK HINLEY ’73
Catharine Gilliam ’82L helps preserve land next to a Civil War battlefield from commercial development. BY A MY C . B A L F O U R ’89, ’93L
“It’s important for individuals and communities to save the important parts of the past,” said Catharine Gilliam ’82L, a long-time historic preservationist. “I’ve seen it enrich people’s lives [and] help local economies.” Gilliam’s experience served her well when Walmart proposed building a Supercenter in Orange County, Va., near the site of the Battle of the Wilderness, a two-day clash in 1864 that marked a turning point in the Civil War.
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“The 2009 Walmart proposal to build on a site I revered really struck a nerve,” said Gilliam, who was then working for the National Parks Conservation Association. She admits that she never really enjoyed reading about Civil War battles and tactics. That changed about 20 years ago, when she toured the Wilderness Battlefield with a National Park Service historian. While they walked, she made connections between the history she’d read and the surrounding landscape. “Some people call it a ‘historical epiphany,’ when you feel the significance of long-ago events by being at the place or holding an object of importance. I finally knew what they meant that day when I walked the Wilderness Battlefield. That’s why I wanted to use every bit of experience and any contacts I had to help save that place.” Gilliam, a Lexington native, became interested in historic preservation in the 1960s and ’70s, when Lexington was busily preserving its downtown. She spent her senior year of high school at Hollins University before enrolling at W&L as one of five female exchange students under the Eight College Exchange Program in 1974. Her great-uncle was Frank J. Gilliam, Class of 1917, W&L’s popular dean of students (1932-1962). She subsequently enrolled
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in the architecture school at the University of Virginia. After working for a preservation group in Pittsburgh, Gilliam applied to law school. “I realized that it was lawyers and bankers who were able to make the projects work,” said Gilliam. W&L was the only law school she applied to that didn’t have a joint degree in land-use planning. “I’m so glad that I did, because I got a much more well-rounded legal education at W&L than I would have if I had tried to specialize.” Gilliam worked in McGuire Woods’ litigation department for two years, then joined the legal team at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a private non-profit created by Congressional charter to encourage the preservation of historic resources across the country. She later moved to the National Trust’s preservation services department. “My job when I left the legal department was to create a program that served state and local groups,” Gilliam said. “They have very wisely put their resources into building and strengthening local and state-based groups, so that it’s not top-down Washington telling people what to do.” During her time at the National Trust, she also created and edited Preservation Forum magazine.
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