The Jonesboro City Council voted Monday night to approve plans to annex and rezone a Civil War battlefield to make way for a funeral home planning to open on the site.

Historians had sought to preserve the 11-acre battlefield where Confederate and Union forces clashed for two days in the Battle of Jonesborough.

Jonesboro Mayor Joy Day says approval of the annexation and re-zoning requests means the proposed funeral home's owner could apply for construction permits immediately to begin building the facility.

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