Williamsburg's New Flavor

When John D. Rockefeller Jr. visited Williamsburg, Va., in 1926, it had all the charm of an unkempt graveyard. Block after block of ramshackle, weather-leached houses seemed to lean into each other for support. Rockefeller threw his formidable support into founding and nurturing Colonial Williamsburg, Inc., a richly endowed corporation that transformed the city's old section into a tourist attraction by painstakingly restoring its splendor as Virginia's former capital. Ever since, Colonial Williamsburg has been successfully transforming history into a lively happening.

Last week in Williamsburg, Arkansas' Governor Winthrop Rockefeller, who also serves as chairman of the corporation's board of trustees, announced a plan that could have as much impact on the area as anything his father ever instigated. Taking time out from the Southern Governors' Conference, Rockefeller reported that he had made a deal with Beer Baron August A. Busch Jr. to build the largest single private industrial development in Virginia's history. Just outside Williamsburg, the Anheuser-Busch Co., producer of Budweiser and Michelob, will put up a brewery, as well as an industrial park, a housing development, a golf course, a marina on the James River and a "Busch Garden," where wildlife will roam in natural settings.

The project, which will cost $40 million initially, had an unusual beginning. At first, Gussie Busch planned to build a brewery at Newport News, ten miles away from Williamsburg. He sought out his old friend Win Rockefeller and assured him that the brewery would in no way dilute Williamsburg's colonial flavor. Rockefeller agreed, and said that he would not mind a bit if the plant were even closer --say, on a 2,500-acre tract that the corporation owned within musket shot of the restored city. Soon after, Busch discovered that the soil at Newport News would not support a brewery, and he took Rockefeller up on his offer.

The new site, for which Busch paid the restoration corporation $3,500,000, is in James City County, the nation's oldest. Mounting educational costs have led the county to the edge of bankruptcy. The Busch project could double the county's $80 million tax base in a few years. The development is also likely to attract more tourists to Williamsburg. Perhaps some will emulate Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, all of whom were known to hoist a few brews in those very environs almost 200 years ago.

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