May 22--Nearly 200 years ago, gold was discovered in Orange County and more than 15 mining sites sprang up in the county's eastern end as gold fever gripped Virginia. According to local historian and author Frank Walker in his definitive work "Remembering: A History of Orange County, Virginia," by 1850 all the easily mined gold in Orange County was gone and by the time the Vaucluse mine flooded in 1937, gold mining in Orange County was over.

Or was it?

Twenty five years ago, we looked at tourism as a quaint byproduct of our advantageous location.

Montpelier was just opening to the public and Barboursville wines were growing in popularity. The Wilderness Battlefield, which, of course, had been the Wilderness Battlefield for 150 years, didn't yet have Ellwood as its crown jewel. The Exchange Hotel in Gordonsville was springing back to life, but the Orange train station (now our visitors center) was empty and in disrepair.

There were a handful of bed and breakfasts, but the notion of tourism as a critical component of the local economy was held to only by an ardent few�mostly those who derived a living from visiting guests.

Historically, we've considered economic development locally to be manufacturing facilities that employed workers by the hundreds. Liberty Fabrics, American Press, American Woodmark, Ridgid Tools, Virginia Metal Industries, Von Holtzbrinck/McMillan Publishing. Scoring a major manufacturer meant not only local job opportunities, but accompanying tax revenue. Win-win.

Meanwhile, tourism kept quietly growing�another winery, another B and B, more weekend visitors discovering Orange County was a good weekend getaway. At the same time, industrial and manufacturing declined and those big plants employing shifts of workers weren't coming to Orange. And the ones we had were downsizing and closing.

Still, tourism grew. Montpelier continued to emerge as a destination and our wineries gained fame with critical acclaim. Suddenly, Orange County wasn't just on the way to somewhere else for travelers with money to spend and interests to pursue.

As our local economy attempts to emerge from the recent recession, it seems interesting to us that tourism appears to be one of the county's strongest growth industries. Surely visitation has suffered some as travelers find fewer discretionary dollars to spend, but at the same time, new visitors have emerged�ones looking for shorter, closer-to-home trips that are more budget-friendly.

While it might have been easy to dismiss the impact of tourism 25 years ago, it must readily be acknowledged in today's economic make-up. When we once considered tourism jobs limited to those few innkeepers or winemakers, we now can see the breadth of jobs associated with our tourism industry.

In our follow-up story this week on the local private efforts to promote tourism in our community, the Inns of Montpelier President Sharon Elswick makes a compelling analysis of tourism's wide spread reach. Last year, the Inns of Montpelier collectively hosted more than 250 weddings.

"Just one wedding at a local historic inn will require the services of local caterers, food purveyors, tent and equipment rental companies, local hair and nail salons, florists, lodging facilities, restaurants, pharmacies, lawn care service and equipment providers, and yes, even auto repair shops," she said.

There's a hundred jobs right there.

As we continue to discuss the county's proposed revision to the comprehensive plan and as county officials continue their efforts to promote compatible economic development, we hope tourism is not only a critical component of those discussions but also a driving force.

When Orange County first mined gold it was costly to extract and required substantial investment. We're mining gold again in tourism, but the return on investment is much, much greater.

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