Preserving History
Asbury Church near Nokesville - over 100 years old
(But does it look unique? Anything really special happen here, or does age alone make a place historic?
According to the National Register of Historic Places website, "Generally, properties eligible for listing in the National Register are at least 50 years old. Properties less than 50 years of age must be exceptionally important to be considered eligible for listing.")
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Questions to Explore This Week
- what makes a place in Northern Virginia "historical" enough to preserve?
- how do archeologists, historians, and naturalists look at the same place through different lenses?
- what organizations preserve sites
- what sites in Northern Virginia represent different historical periods and cultures?
- how could we preserve a full range of modern society, representing more than just the "elites"?
(NOTE: lots of short readings this week...)
1) What Makes A Place "Historic"?
- Nomination form for Salona
- Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail Study (read "The Flight of the Madisons" on pp.28-31)
- Virginia Landmarks Register (familar with any of the places listed in the City of Fairfax? Is Lee's Boyhood Home on there, along with the separate Lee-Fendall House in Alexandria?)
- History and Heritage sites (at the state's Virginia Is For Lovers website)
Carlyle house in Alexandria
(pretty fancy home in 1755, for a town founded in just 1749)
2) Who Saves History?
- About Mount Vernon
- Saving Mount Vernon The Birth of Preservation in America
- Democratic Architecture
- Reconstructing a Slave Cabin at Mount Vernon
- A Brief History of George Washington's Distillery
- Why Reconstruct George Washington's Distillery?
- Ferry Farm History
- About the Foundation
- Protesters Fight a Plan For Washington's Home (New York Times, March 13, 1996)
- Arlington on Alert, 2007 from the Arlington Heritage Alliance (and note that once-common bungalow houses are now historic and must be saved...)
- Brief history of the Ball-Sellers house in Arlington
- Arlington Historical Museum
- Lee Street Site (Alexandria Archeology Museum)
- Rippon Lodge (Heritage Preservation Division, Prince William County)
- Sulley Historic Site (Fairfax County Park Authority)
- Carlyle House - History
cannonball inserted into wall of Stone House on Manassas Battlefielld after Civil War, to generate tourist traffic
(inserted before National Park Service acquired property, and present for so long it might "damage" a historic feature to remove it)
6) The Third Battle(s) of Manassas
- Read Stonewalling the Mall (Chapter 10) in Battling for Manassas: The Fifty-Year Preservation Struggle at Manassas National Battlefield Park
Rippon Lodge in Prince William County (while being restored at county expense)
7) What Should We Save?
- Photography changes land use and planning
- Quantico Marine Base-Housing with a History
- Visual Guide to the Lustron
- The prices make these model homes a steel (Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, February 17, 2006)
- Housing History for the Taking at Quantico (Washington Post, January 23, 2006)
- Lustron House Preservation Efforts in Arlington County, Virginia
Note "Olde Towne" spellling in Manassas -
an attempt by motel owner to create a colonial-era connection for a city that did not exist until the Civil War
(perhaps this is more of a colonial-
error connection...)
Geography of Northern Virginia
Virginia Places