For the past few years, PA SHPO has kicked off National Historic Preservation Month by announcing the newest Community Initiative Award winners. The four 2023 recipients and their projects showcase a variety of preservation success stories, demonstrating the importance of preserving those places at the heart of Pennsylvania’s communities that embody its past and present stories.
Category: Crawford (Page 1 of 2)
The Pennsylvania Baseline Survey Team is thrilled to share the final year of findings from the Pennsylvania Baseline Survey. From June 2022 to March 2024, Year 3 of the Baseline Survey took place in 20 counties. To date, over 6,854 new resources have been recorded in 503 municipalities thanks to the efforts of our Baseline Survey Teams!
Any Pennsylvanian at heart has a list of places in the Keystone State that captures the essence of who we are.
Baseline Survey On the Road Again: Newly Documented Roadside Resources in Pennsylvania
“I can’t wait to get on the road again/On the road again/Goin’ places that I’ve never been/Seein’ things that I may never see again/And I can’t wait to get on the road again…”
-Willie Nelson, “On the Road Again,” 1980
With Pennsylvania’s long transportation history – from railroads and canals to the Pennsylvania Turnpike and the many beautiful bridges throughout the Commonwealth – it’s no surprise that the teams working on the Baseline Survey Project discovered and inventoried a multitude of Pennsylvania’s previously unrecorded roadside resources!
Messerall Road Bridge: The Next Chapter
The main character of our story, the Messerall Road Bridge, began its life over Pine Creek near East Titusville in 1876, carrying traffic associated with the local oil and lumber industries. The bridge served as a crossing over Pine Creek nearly 140 years before it was closed to vehicular traffic in 1987.
Exploring African American Heritage in Pennsylvania’s DCNR Parks and Forests
Pennsylvania is rife in human history – if you’re in Pennsylvania, consider yourself surrounded with nearly 20,000 years of it! So, it should come as no great surprise that its 121-state park and over 2 million-acre forest system, administered by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, are steeped in both natural and human history.
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Precious Metal Preservation: the Lift
Nestled amongst the oak-covered hills of rural northwest Pennsylvania until very recently sat an iron artifact from a bygone era. Built in 1876 by the Wrought Iron Bridge Company of Canton, Ohio, this elegant, metal arch structure is what is termed, in historical bridge parlance, as a bowstring through-truss.
Originally owned and maintained by Crawford County, it has gone by numerous names over the years, including East Titusville Bridge, Pine Creek Bridge and, more recently, Messerall Road Bridge. Whatever name it goes by, it is now more commonly known for being the last of its kind in western Pennsylvania.
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Soon fans of Pennsylvania’s historical markers will be braking for 23 new ones. The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC) recently approved the next batch of new historical markers at their March 2021 meeting.
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In honor of national African American history month, I thought I would give our readers a glimpse into a few of the resources PHMC has to help study African American historic places in Pennsylvania.
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Titusville, Drafting Community-Focused Design Guidelines to Promote Preservation
Design guidelines have long been considered the “level” in the preservation toolbox.
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