Pennsylvania Historic Preservation

Blog of the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office

Category: National Register of Historic Places (Page 21 of 25)

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

The Battle of Brandywine Revisited

February 25, 2015 / / 0 Comments

By Jill Hall and Karen Marshall

Brinton 1704 House and the surrounding lands were the location of core combat actions in the final phase of the Battle, Chadds Ford, Delaware County

Brinton 1704 House and the surrounding lands were the location of core combat actions in the final phase of the Battle, Chadds Ford, Delaware County

On September 11, 1777, British General William Howe and his professional army engaged General George Washington and his citizen soldiers along the banks of the Brandywine River about 30 miles southwest of Philadelphia. Part of a larger strategy known as the Philadelphia Campaign, the Battle of Brandywine was one of the earliest and largest battles of the American Revolution, encompassing some 30,000 British and American soldiers. The Battle lasted from sunup to sundown, instantly changing the character of a quiet farming community that consisted predominately of Quakers. Although the Battle of Brandywine was a loss for the Americans, they proved that they had the resiliency to withstand the British, increasing French support of the American cause.  Continue reading

A Place In Time: The Pittsburgh Renaissance Historic District

January 28, 2015 / / 12 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.  

The Fort Pitt Blockhouse in Pittsburgh.

The Fort Pitt Blockhouse in Pittsburgh.

Throughout much of its industrial history, Pittsburgh had an image problem. In 1868 James Parton wrote in The Atlantic Monthly that it was “Hell with the lid taken off.” Later, it became known as “The Smoky City.” Pollution was a big issue, but there were other problems, such as traffic congestion, flooding and blight that made Pittsburgh a less-than-desirable place to live. It was so bad that in 1944 The Wall Street Journal characterized Pittsburgh among cities “that had bleak futures.” One could argue that nowhere were these issues more visible than at the Point, the area of downtown where the Allegheny River and the Monongahela River join to form the Ohio River. Prior to World War II, the Point was a smoky, gritty, blighted area that was home to two railyards, several exposition halls, offices, clubs and hotels. It was also home to the Fort Pitt Blockhouse, a 1764 building owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution and the sole remaining aboveground structure from the Colonial-era Fort Pitt. Continue reading

Preservation at 50: Planning for the Anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act

December 17, 2014 / / 2 Comments

I am dismayed to learn from reading this report that almost half of the twelve thousand structures listed in the Historic American Buildings Survey of the National Park Service have already been destroyed.  This a serious loss and it underlines the necessity for prompt action if we are not to shirk our duty to the future.

– Lady Bird Johnson in With Heritage So Rich, 1966

medium-logoIn the waning months of 1964, a small group of preservation advocates, beleaguered by nearly two decades of Federal transportation and urban renewal programs that decimated historic communities across the country, gathered to strategize about a new national framework for historic preservation. They wondered whether the “progress” ushered in by the post war economic boom could be redefined in ways that would respect, and even enhance, historic places? Those efforts would eventually lead, in October 1966, to the adoption of the National Historic Preservation Act, the most comprehensive and fully articulated law protecting historic places in the United States.

The country is preparing to mark the 50th anniversary of the NHPA in 2016, and there are many preservation accomplishments to celebrate, but also much left to be done.  Preservation50, a coalition of national preservation organizations and agencies is organizing the celebration of the NHPA anniversary and they need your input and involvement. Continue reading

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2026 Pennsylvania Historic Preservation

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑

Wordpress Social Share Plugin powered by Ultimatelysocial