It’s a natural.

Waynesboro is a great location for a proposed expansion of the Virginia Museum of Natural History.
Ten years ago, citing budget stresses, the state shuttered branches of the museum located at the University of Virginia and at Virginia Tech.
That was a blow to our pride, as well as the loss of one of our tourist attractions and educational sites. But … maybe not that much of a loss.

With more well-known attractions on the UVa Grounds such as the Rotunda, the Lawn and the Serpentine Wall, we’re not certain that the natural history museum received its fair share of attention. Sure, we’d like it back.

But maybe Waynesboro would be a good alternative.

All of Virginia can boast fascinating natural history, but the Shenandoah Valley is especially rich, with its fabulous caves, its Natural Bridge, its storied river, its Blue Ridge and Alleghany mountains, its native American history, its fossils and more.

Waynesboro is located along a natural travel route, at the confluence of north-south Interstate 81 and east-west I-64. Tourists can easily detour from these routes into Waynesboro. The natural history museum can be packaged and marketed with other types of tourist experiences common to the Shenandoah Valley: winery tours, scenic drives, the Civil War.

While these experiences match the Charlottesville area as well, there may be less competition among attractions in Waynesboro. The Museum of Natural History might stand out more clearly as an attraction in its own right, rather than blending into the background among a host of other destinations.

The museum currently is located in Martinsville, where it was hoped that the site would bring in tourists and boost the economy. But officials believe a satellite location in Waynesboro would benefit the museum as well, by bringing its wealth of artifacts to a larger audience. The Martinsville site currently maintains more than 22 million specimens of plants and animals.

Executive director Joe Keiper says he’ll seek $10 million for the project from the General Assembly. Some of the funding could come from a bond issue, but Waynesboro-area residents and businesses also would have to contribute to the effort.

A natural history museum would be a perfect component to the nature tourism that already occurs in the Waynesboro area.

And who knows? Some of that tourism might spill over into Albemarle and Charlottesville across the mountain.

If the natural history museum can’t be in Charlottesville, then we’d love to see it in Waynesboro.