An assessment of the cultural and historical resources in the six-county Muscle Shoals National Heritage Area indicates a vast amount of historic sites, museums, trails and recreation areas that can be used to attract visitors to northwest Alabama.

About two dozen people attended a presentation Tuesday where a group of consultants discussed the assets and their economic potential if they're properly marketed and preserved.

The Muscle Shoals National Heritage Area was designated by the U.S. Congress in 2009 and includes Colbert, Franklin, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limestone and Morgan counties. It is the 49th national heritage area in the U.S. and the only one in Alabama.

Preliminary findings presented Tuesday are part of a management plan being created to help promote and develop cultural tourism in the heritage area. The plan is required by the legislation that created the national heritage area and includes an environmental impact study, a business plan, sustainability plan and inventory of environmental, recreational and historic assets.

The inventory included assets that fall within the three themes of the Tennessee River, Native American and music heritage.

Phil Thomason, of Thomason and Associates, a firm specializing in preservation planning, said the area includes 25 historic districts and 69 individual sites that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. There are also 127 entries on the Alabama Register of Historic Places.

"You have a couple hundred years of architecture here," Thomason said.

Project Manager Phil Walker, of the Nashville planning firm The Walker Collaborative, said the assessment also revealed a variety of endangered species of plants, animals and reptiles in the six-county area. There are 95 endangered "vascular plants" such as trees, 66 endangered species of mussels, seven reptiles and nine mammals, four of which are bats.

Randall Gross, a Washington D.C. economist, said the counties in the national heritage area have suffered significant job losses since 1998, mostly in the manufacturing sector, but tourism related jobs have actually grown despite a decrease in tourism between 2008-10 because of the recession.

"It has proven to be more resilient than other sectors," Gross said.

He said the Alabama Department of Tourism indicated 1.3 million people visited the counties encompassing the national heritage area in 2010.

Tourism expenditures totaled $470 million, he said.

The area's Heritage Tourism Asset Base includes 130 festivals, 26 museums, 42 public parks, four large Tennessee Valley Authority lakes, 17 golf courses, 45 downtowns, 42 walking or driving trails, more than 100 historic sites and 110 lodging facilities.

"You have a wonderful diversity of coverage," Gross said.

Gross also listed some weaknesses, including the financial distress of key historic sites, a lack of strategic planning, few guided tours, some key sites are not being marketed for tourism and a lack of curatorial support and conservation.

"You need to look at ways to use to use technology to interest the younger generation," Gross said.

He also pointed out that the majority of people who visit historic sites are those with college and post graduate educations. Only about 10 percent of those with less than a high school education visit historic sites.