Pennsylvania Historic Preservation

Blog of the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office

Category: National Register of Historic Places (Page 19 of 23)

Erie Insurance Exchange Building after rehabilitation.

Good Things Take Time: The First Pennsylvania Tax Credit Project Comes Online

August 19, 2015 / / 1 Comment

erie after 5During my tenure with Pennsylvania’s Historic Preservation Office, I reviewed numerous legislative drafts for the long-awaited Pennsylvania Historic Preservation Tax Credit program.  Early drafts included a historic homeowner component.  Later versions proposed grants instead of tax credits.  All dozen or so drafts were bypassed in the legislative process until the approval of the Pennsylvania Historic Tax Credit program in the Fiscal Year 2012-13.

After a successful launch of the program in Fiscal Year 2013-14, I was eagerly anticipating the approval of the first historic tax credit project.  My money was on a project from Philadelphia or Pittsburgh. These two cities received the most state tax credit allocations and have a long track record for project completion.  To my surprise, those two cities will need to take a back to seat to the Flagship City of Erie – our Gem City situated on the sparkling water of Presque Isle Bay and Lake Erie – and the striking rehabilitation of the CF Adams Building by the Erie Insurance Exchange. Continue reading

Kiefel Bridge, taken by Nathaniel Holth. Courtesy of historicbridges.com. 2013. Used by permission of Nathaniel Holth.

Intern Introspect: 10 Historic Bridges in Pennsylvania to Paddle Under Before the Temperature Plummets

August 12, 2015 / / 0 Comments

by Elizabeth Shultz

Nestled between the peak heat of July and the crispness of October’s flaming foliage is that special span of outdoor living in Pennsylvania that is the perfect time to hoist your kayaks and canoes onto your shoulders, strap your sturdiest water shoes to your feet, and set out to feast your eyes on some of the architectural and engineering gems that crisscross Pennsylvania’s diverse bodies of water. In the true Commonwealth spirit of discovery, before our rivers turn to frozen slush and our streams start to crunch, let your paddles guide you under some of Pennsylvania’s treasured pieces of transportation history – starting with those listed below! Continue reading

Shippensburg Corn Festival, 1982, by Edward Sheaffer, Courtesy of Shippensburg Historical Society.

Shippensburg’s Corn Festival: Thirty-Five Years of Corn, Fun, and Historic Preservation

July 29, 2015 / / 5 Comments

By Steven Burg

Shippensburg Corn Festival, 2006. Photo by Peter Linehan, Flickr Commons, Creative Commons, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.

Shippensburg Corn Festival, 2006. Photo by Peter Linehan, Flickr Commons, Creative Commons, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.

On the last Saturday in August for the last three and a half decades, tens of thousands of visitors have descended on downtown Shippensburg to enjoy the crafts, music, entertainment, and food of the Shippensburg Corn Festival. Despite the continued success of the event, many people know little about its origins as a fundraiser created to protect and preserve the community’s historic buildings. Continue reading

Just Listed: Historic Breweries of Pennsylvania Edition

July 15, 2015 / / 16 Comments

Just Listed is a semi-annual feature of Pennsylvania’s cultural resources that were recently listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Since our last Just Listed post, four properties from across the Commonwealth have been listed in the National Register of Historic Places.  You can explore these National Register nominations and other historic properties in Pennsylvania via CRGIS, our online map and database.

The History of Pennsylvania Breweries

Pennsylvania may be the home to Yuengling, known as “America’s oldest brewery,” however the Commonwealth has yet to officially declare a craft beer month.  However the ‘Official Tourism Website of the State of Pennsylvania’ dedicated a page to Pennsylvania Craft Brews, where Pennsylvania’s beer culture is significantly truncated…

The German immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania in the 1700s and 1800s brought many of their old-world traditions with them, including the love of great beer.

This particular blog post isn’t going to detail Pennsylvania’s brewing history (but maybe we’ll mull over the idea of a beer blog for a future post).  And we’re a little late to honor American Craft Beer Week (which was mid-May this year).  Regardless of any future beer narrations, resolutions or festivals, Pennsylvania indisputably has a rich brewing history and those buildings where brewing happened have been recognized by the National Register of Historic Places. Continue reading

Sunnybrook Ballroom, Montgomery County
The Sunnybrook Ballroom in Lower Pottsgrove, Montgomery County.

Discovering Pennsylvania’s Jazz History

April 8, 2015 / / 2 Comments

Turning the calendar page from March to April is a cause for celebration on many fronts – the end of winter, the blooming of spring flowers, and an official reason to celebrate jazz! Yes, April is National Jazz Appreciation Month and Pennsylvania has a long, rich history with the musical genre.  Jazz has its roots in the African-American communities of the American South, but made its way north during the Great Migration in the 1910s and 20s.  Artists and organizations from Pennsylvania, especially Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, were hugely influential in the evolution of jazz and numerous communities built concert halls that  hosted some of the most legendary performers on their cross country tours.  Pennsylvania’s role in the history of jazz is so significant that Explorepahistory.com has a whole section devoted to the subject, including photos, recordings, and lesson plans.  Continue reading

Ridgway Armory. Photo Courtesy of Pennsylvania DMVA.

UPDATE: Local Landmarks For Sale

March 25, 2015 / / 0 Comments

In our June 2013 post, we featured the upcoming sale of National Register listed state armories located in historic communities throughout the Commonwealth.  To date, eight of the armories marketed for adaptive reuse by the Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs have been sold to buyers who have agreed to purchase the buildings with a historic preservation covenant. The covenants will help to ensure future improvements to the buildings will be carried out in accordance with the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards and Guidelines for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings. Continue reading

A Place In Time: The Original Little League Field

March 18, 2015 / / 11 Comments

A Place In Time is a regular feature in Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine, published quarterly by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, and available for purchase at ShopPaHeritage.com.  A subscription to the magazine is a benefit of membership in the Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation, the nonprofit partner of the PHMC.  

Original Little League Field - 1947 - Putsee Vannucci, Little League Baseball and Softball

Original Little League Field, 1947. Courtesy of Putsee Vannucci.

Like many boys growing up in the 1930s, the nephews of Williamsport resident Carl E. Stotz (1910-92) were baseball fanatics. After playing countless games of “pitch and catch” with the boys, Stotz promised them that he would develop a game of baseball on a size and scale appropriate for younger players. He kept his promise. In the late summer of 1938,  he gathered his nephews and other local boys in Williamsport’s Memorial Park, where he began to experiment with field dimensions for a scaled down version of the game. With folded newspapers representing each base, he took note of the running speed and throwing distance capabilities of the young players.  He then determined that his game should have base paths 60 feet in length, rather than the standard 90 feet, and a distance of 46 feet from the pitcher’s mound to home plate, instead of the regular 60 feet, 6 inches. While traditional baseball games last at least nine innings, Stotz realized that was too long and planned his youth games to run only six innings. Continue reading

Just Listed: Recent Additions to the National Register of Historic Places

March 11, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Just Listed is a semi-annual feature of Pennsylvania’s cultural resources that were recently listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Since our last Just Listed post, 27 resources from all corners of the Commonwealth have been listed in the National Register of Historic Places.  You can explore these and other historic properties in Pennsylvania via CRGIS, our online map and database. Continue reading

Spotlight Series: Easton Cemetery

March 4, 2015 / / 3 Comments
The monumental 7th Street Gate to the Easton Cemetery. Photo by Jeremy Young, October 2014.

The monumental 7th Street Gate to the Easton Cemetery. Photo by Jeremy Young, October 2014.

High on a hill overlooking the City of Easton is the serene, picturesque, and endlessly fascinating Easton Cemetery.  The cemetery occupies a point of land created by a bend in the Bushkill Creek that, at the time of the cemetery’s establishment in 1849, was on the edge of a rapidly growing industrial community in desperate need of both parkland and sanitary burial options.  The historic core of the burial ground, 48 acres assembled in two parcels during the 19th century, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1990 for its significance in landscape architecture and art.  Continue reading

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