Blog of the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office
Tuesday, February 26, was the day the rubber literally hit the road! In fact, using a pedometer, one of the participants in “Day on the Hill” in Washington, D.C. determined that Pennsylvania’s two teams each walked about 5 miles in their efforts to deliver Pennsylvania’s preservation message to members of our Congressional delegation! Continue reading
Or at least we try to. In 2008, BHP conducted a questionnaire for Certified Local Governments (CLGs). Among many other suggestions, the most frequent request we received was to help with design issues. The Certified Local Government (CLG) program is one of the federal historic preservation programs administered by the BHP. Essentially, local governments who agree to operate their historic preservation programs according to Pennsylvania’s CLG guidelines can be certified through our office and the National Park Service. CLG certification, among other benefits, provides access to a dedicated source of funding for non-construction preservation projects from BHP.
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Anne E. Nelson
Historic preservation in Pittsburgh has had a productive past few months. Activity in downtown Pittsburgh is blossoming due to the rehabilitation and adaptive reuse of several historic buildings by developers using historic preservation tax incentives. The boundaries of a locally designated historic district were recommended for expansion by the City of Pittsburgh’s (City) Historic Review and Planning Commissions to the City Council. The City issued a Request For Proposal (RFP) to undertake an economic study of the financial and social impacts of preservation. In addition, the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission (PHMC) is recommending to the National Park Service for listing on the National Register of Historic Places a new historic district, as well as boundary expansions and updated inventories for four existing National Register districts in downtown Pittsburgh.
Camp Security is a Revolutionary War period prisoner-of-war camp occupied by British, Scottish and Canadian prisoners and camp followers (often wives and other family members) between 1781 and the end of the war in 1783. The site is located about four miles east of the City of York, in a relatively small, undeveloped portion of suburban Springettsbury Township. Thirty years ago, PHMC archaeologists Barry Kent and Charles Hunter, with a small field crew, located over 100 archaeological features containing artifacts dating to the latter part of the 18th century. In all likelihood, these materials are related to the prisoner-of-war camp. Most of the features are pits which were dug into the ground and which ultimately became receptacles for a variety of domestic debris associated with the occupation of the camp. Continue reading
The PHMC is proud to announce that eGrant is open for applications for the Keystone Historic Preservation Grant Program. Many applications are already started for this immensely popular grant program but it isn’t too late for your community or local-nonprofit to submit an application.
Hannah touring the Lackawanna Coal Mine
If you’ve been to a preservation or archaeology conference lately, you may have found yourself looking out at a sea of grey heads. The generation that began working on public projects in the 1970’s and 1980’s with the initial implementation of Federal and State Historic and Archaeological Preservation laws and regulations, is now retiring. These are the people who invented what is known as Cultural Resource Management (CRM). If important historic places are going to continue to be protected and managed for the future, a new generation of cultural resource professionals will have to carry the standard. Continue reading
As we ring in a new year, the PA Historic Preservation Office (PA HPO) is also fine tuning a new approach to the review of state and federal projects that have the potential to affect historic structures. The review process, mandated by federal law (Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 as amended) and state law (the PA History Code), is a core responsibility of all state historic preservation offices. Here in Pennsylvania we have made some changes in order to expedite and streamline our review process. Continue reading
The Pennsylvania Agricultural History Project involved a unique partnership among the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, and the Pennsylvania State University with funding from the Federal Highway Administration and the federal Preserve America program. An outcome of the project is a comprehensive website that addresses the scope and character of Pennsylvania’s agricultural resources. Research for the project began in 2001. We are proud to release the culmination of this 12+ year partnership on our website at: http://phmc.info/aghistory.
To celebrate PHMC’s 2012 annual theme “The Land of Penn and Plenty: Bringing History to the Table,” Historical Marker Program staff developed a scavenger hunt featuring markers related to Pennsylvania’s rural and agricultural history for the 2012 Pennsylvania Farm Show.
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