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DeSoto — Land near here that settlers traveled through on the Oregon Trail and where Americans assembled World War II ammunition should not be paved over for an amusement park, more than a dozen Johnson County residents said at a town meeting Thursday.

Interested parties gathered Wednesday night at DeSoto High School to express discontent with plans to transfer ownership of the Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant property near town to private ownership for the construction of a Wizard of Oz theme park.

Oz Entertainment Corp. plans to conduct needed environmental waste cleanup on the area and build the resort and theme park, which is expected to boost the economy.

However, many of those gathered Wednesday said the 9,000-acre site was worth saving from further development.

Representatives from General Services Administration, the government's real estate broker, gave residents an opportunity to express concerns that the land should be preserved for historical conservation, not covered with asphalt and roller coasters.

More than a dozen people spoke for the conservation of the land.

"We have not inherited this land from our fathers, we are borrowing it from our children," said Katie Hopkins of Olathe, quoting an American Indian proverb.

Rex Burkhardt, president of the Eudora Area Historical Society, explained that the Oregon-California Trail and the California Road, among other possible relics of the Western migration, should be protected.

"Once these trails are paved over, they're gone forever," Burkhardt said.

Others cited American Indian history and the beauty of the woodlands and prairie surrounding the plant as reasons for using the property for purposes other than the theme park.

Approval will have to go through a web of local, state and national offices, including the GSA and a congressional committee.

The process for selling the property to Oz Entertainment Corp. is already two years in the making, said Mark Duffy, GSA attorney.

However, Duffy stressed that a plan was not set in stone.

"We are not finished with this thing," Duffy said Wednesday. "We are here to get more information and hopefully get a plan people are comfortable with."

Duffy encouraged those with an interest in preserving the land to contact the Kansas State Historic Preservation Office or the GSA.

"There are many historical trails that run through that property that we all have a vested interest in," Duffy said.

The 9,000-acre plot will be sold in chunks, Duffy stressed, and not all have the potential of housing the theme park. Some of those chunks have six sites already known to be eligible for the National Historic Registrar.

MORE: www.kshs.org/resources/histpres.htm