Eighteen counties in Mississippi — including Warren, Issaquena, Sharkey and Yazoo — could receive designation as a National Heritage Area and qualify for federal funding to develop regional tourism if the U.S. House of Representatives approves a bill passed by the Senate on Thursday.

Piggybacking the Public Lands Management Act of 2009, the provision would establish two distinct National Heritage Areas in the Mississippi Delta and Hills regions.

The United States has 37 National Heritage Areas, including the Mississippi Gulf Coast and Atchafalaya Basin in Louisiana. The National Parks Service defines a National Heritage Area as a region in which “national, cultural, historic and recreational resources combine to form a cohesive, national-distinctive landscape.” 

Receiving distinction as a National Heritage Area does not guarantee federal funding, however, it authorizes the government to grant money to the area to develop heritage tourism for at least 10 years.

Chip Morgan, executive vice president of the Delta Council, a regional economic development group, said the effort to get the Mississippi Delta designated as a National Heritage Area began more than three years ago when the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in Indianola — which opened in September — was being planned.

“We became aware of these heritage areas, and noticed they were having a lot of success in developing tourism across wide regions. The idea is to market the area as a whole instead of having areas like Tunica and Vicksburg compete against one another for tourists,” he said. “If we can get 10 percent of the 12 million people who visit Tunica annually to spend an extra night in Mississippi and travel through the Delta to Vicksburg, then we’ve hit a home run.” 

It is not clear if any federal funding acquired via a National Heritage Area distinction would aid in the building of specific attractions or simply promote regional heritage tourism, said Morgan.

“That would be determined by the governing body that would be created for the National Heritage Area,” he said.

Members of the governing body would be appointed by entities such as the Delta Council, Delta State University, Mississippi Valley State, Mississippi Arts Commission, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, the governor’s office and others.  

Morgan expects the House to take up the act before June, and is optimistic it will be OK’d. The other counties in the heritage areas include Bolivar, Carroll, Coahoma, DeSoto, Holmes, Humphreys, Leflore, Panola, Quitman, Sunflower, Tallahatchie, Tate, Tunica and Washington.

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Contact Steve Sanoski at ssanoski@vicksburgpost.com.