Blog of the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office
Earlier this week my Alexa reminded me that there are 100 days until the end of the year. After a moment of shock, my brain started its mental cataloguing of all the things that I have to do before December 31. Deadlines, appointments, holidays, the list goes on…
One reminder I’d like to put on your to-do list before the year is out is to tell us about a preservation success story in your community. Each year PA SHPO selects a few of these stories for a Community Initiative Award.
Prominent landmarks in small towns hold a special type of nostalgic significance for those who have interacted with them.
This week’s 2023 Community Initiative Award winner spotlight is on the Slate Hill Cemetery in Lower Makefield Township, Bucks County.
Lower Makefield’s Slate Hill Cemetery is an intact Colonial-era graveyard that was established in 1690 as a Quaker burial ground and was later expanded to include the township’s first public cemetery. It contains about 580 burials, including veterans of the U.S. Colored Troops who served in the Civil War. The earliest known burial dates to 1698 and the last known burial was in 1918.
Recently, the Township – which is one of Pennsylvania’s Certified Local Governments (CLG) – began an ambitious project to document, preserve, and promote the history of the cemetery. I asked some of the folks from the Historical Commission, which is spearheading the effort, to share the story with us.
Each week in May, to celebrate National Historic Preservation Month, we will highlight one of the 2023 Community Initiative Award winners. In this week’s post, I asked Josh Stull with the Nicholson Heritage Association about their work preserving the Nicholson Train Station.
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.
Several years ago, my colleagues and I at the PA SHPO compiled a history of preservation achievements in Pennsylvania. This interesting trek through the preservation timeline was published in the Winter 2016 issue of Pennsylvania Heritage magazine and was added as a chapter in the current statewide historic preservation plan, #PreservationHappensHere. This week in honor of Women’s History Month, I’m taking a deeper dive into the role of women in Pennsylvania’s preservation accomplishments.
As part of Black History Month, we invited Friends of the Tanner House – which we first introduced to our readers in this post – to talk about strategies for advancing Black heritage site preservation with attention to rich community and cultural engagement. In this blog post, guest contributor Chris Rogers discuss the principles behind their in-progress community visioning and preservation planning process.
Each year, the PA SHPO awards grants to the Commonwealth’s Certified Local Governments (CLG) for the purpose of advancing local historic preservation activities.
As we wrap up National Historic Preservation Month, we are highlighting the last of our 2022 Community Initiative Award winners. In this week’s post, we talked with Mark Zerr, Executive Director of the Hay Creek Valley Historical Association (HCVHA), about their successful efforts to protect and interpret Joanna Furnace.
This week’s 2022 Community Initiative Award winner spotlight is on Concord Township’s preservation of the Spring Valley AME Church in Delaware County.
This project in Delaware County caught the eagle eye of one of my colleagues last year from some press reporting and I’m glad it did. She just happened to be the SHPO’s reviewer for most projects that were undertaken with funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), particularly using Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) money.
Using CDBG funds for historic preservation – like Concord Township did – is a great way for communities to invest in the older and historic places that matter to them and that tell their full stories.
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