Pennsylvania Historic Preservation

Blog of the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office

Author: Katie Hess

Hess is a Cultural Resources GIS Specialist for Pennsylvania's State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO). Supporting efforts to innovate the field of historic preservation, Hess advocates for conservation of resources and sense of place at the landscape and regional scale.

Hess’ background includes environmental science, policy, agriculture, cultural resource preservation, landscape design and planning, and GIS. Hess believes that Pennsylvania is unique and works with groups and communities to overcome challenges while preserving sense of place. She works with the South Mountain Partnership, Harrisburg City Beautiful 2.0, and the Living Landscape Observer to further these ideas. Hess earned a Masters of Landscape Architecture from Pennsylvania State University (2012) and a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Science and Policy from Hood College (2006).

BHP’s Offbeat Outings: Worlds End

June 11, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Offbeat Outings is a bi-monthly series that highlights the travels of BHP staff as they experience history first-hand throughout Pennsylvania.

A few weeks ago, I headed north on Friday afternoon and drove just over 100 miles to Worlds End State Park in Sullivan County.  Until living in Harrisburg and working for the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office, my territory was mostly focused south and east of Franklin County.  Traveling north by myself was a new experience.  Having had some pretty great adventures, I was surprised by this experience and by finding a landscape of such dynamic character.  Continue reading

The South Mountain Region

Historic Preservation Opportunities Found Through Collaborative Management

September 18, 2013 / / 0 Comments

What should you do for something you enjoy having in your life –a favorite building, deli, museum, music collection, antique, pet, or person?  You ensure its survival by providing healthy surroundings.  What if your labor to support and protect what you hold dear is eased by others who feel the same?  Many hands make light work.  What if that shared labor meant coordinating over fifty organizations composed of non-profits, businesses, and local, state, and federal partners?  Things would get a bit complex.  This is both the opportunity and the challenge of collaboratively managing – involving multiple stakeholder groups along with conventional managers, researchers, and specialists – in managing historic resources. Continue reading

A workshop at the community center collected information from long-time residents and engaged young residents, April 2011

The Potential of Cultural Landscapes

May 1, 2013 / / 1 Comment

Peirce Lewis, an American geographer and emeritus professor at the Pennsylvania State University, may have best described the concept of cultural landscapes; “The human landscape is our unwitting autobiography, reflecting our tastes, our values, our aspirations, and even our fears in tangible, visible form.”  Land shows both individual and collective beliefs in a physical manifestation.  Most of us can physically see what we do to our land.  However, stories associated with the “how” and the “why” we do these things are part of the cultural landscape because they support associated trends, events, and individuals.  This is important to state, and restate, because we forget about the depth of information caught-up in the unseen value system that drives the building of communities and use of resources. Continue reading

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