Travel writers recognize 'Pa. Wilds' promotion

MANCHESTER, England - The Pennsylvania Wilds, a block of a dozen counties in the north-central part of the state where officials have carried out an intensive tourism effort, won an award yesterday from the nation's largest association of travel writers.

The Society of American Travel Writers announced that the Pennsylvania Wilds project was one of four winners of its annual Phoenix Award, honoring major conservation and preservation efforts.

The project "involves unprecedented cooperation between several state agencies, as well as a unique partnership between state and local partners," said Peggy Bendel, chairwoman of the awards. "No other initiative exists in the country on this scale and level of strategic thinking."

Gov. Rendell began the project, which combines attractions in the 12 counties into a unified tourism area, by establishing a cabinet-level task force in 2003. The area covers 2.1 million acres of public land, which the state calls the largest block of public land between New York and Chicago. It includes Allegheny National Forest and 29 state parks.

The tourism area is composed of McKean, Clinton, Lycoming, Warren, Cameron, Clarion, Clearfield, Elk, Forest, Jefferson, Potter and Tioga Counties. It includes a scenic drive - Route 6 - that stretches across the area, leading to hundreds of miles of bike and hiking paths, fishing streams, roaming elk and what the state promotes as the darkest nighttime skies in the East.

"The little hotels and restaurants, shops and diversions in this vast area are still locally owned, and this remains a rural region free of urban sprawl - a place of forests and friendly, small-town people, giving it a sense of place in the very best sense," Bendel told about 500 society members at their 52d convention here.

The plaque, to be presented to officials later this year, was all the more meaningful because many state and local agencies were able to develop the area as a tourism attraction in only four years, she said.

The other Phoenix Award winners are White River State Park, a revitalized area that is home to many attractions in Indianapolis; a $200 million project that has preserved the old gold-mining town of Deadwood, S.D.; and the 29,000-square-foot Darwin D. Martin House Complex in Buffalo, a Frank Lloyd Wright site containing 394 art-glass windows that was in major disrepair before a recent restoration.