Colorado has been a national leader in this work. And you are uniquely well-placed to lead the way again, in helping to build an even broader grassroots movement. The whole Western experience--which is so much of the American experience--is defined by this incredible natural backdrop, and what it took to settle this place. And you have so many people here—ranchers, farmers, Native Americans—who have a real, gut-level understanding of this connection between our natural and cultural resources, and a willingness to protect them both.
The Colorado Historical Society was founded in , just three years after Colorado officially became a state! This is an incredible opportunity for us as preservationists, and all of you are taking advantage of it. Colorado Preservation has joined forces with local ranchers in the Southeast to document and protect archeological and cultural resources on private land.
In New Mexico, Theresa Pasqual, who is the historic preservation director for the Acoma Pueblo, spearheaded a coalition of five tribes who bravely came forward to talk about the cultural significance of Mount Taylor and the surrounding area to their people. The tribes won listing for the site on the state register of cultural properties, and now have a seat at the table for discussions about how to move forward with uranium mining on the mountain.
A place like Mount Taylor, which encompasses nearly , acres, challenges our traditional ideas about preservation. They have mountains and rivers and lakes. These are their history books, the places that tell their story. And their story is an important part of our collective American story. Just 3 percent of the 84, sites on the National Register represent Native Americans, African Americans, Latino and Hispanic Americans, and other diverse communities. And we need to bring more young people into our work, through programs like the Youth Summit started by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and continued so successfully by Colorado Preservation and Ann Pritzlaff.
As so often happens, your work has inspired us at the National Trust, and we are currently exploring the idea of a grassroots survey that would engage people in identifying the places that matter to them. Our objective is to celebrate 1 million places nationwide. Ultimately, my hope is that we can put preservation on a par with conservation when it comes to the number of people expressing concern—roughly 1 in 10 adult Americans.
To accomplish that, we will need to tackle the second theme I wanted to talk about today, which is how to make our work more visible and more widely understood. Both the tangible economic and environmental benefits, and the intangible benefits of a strong sense of place. But I do want to take a minute to acknowledge the really thoughtful, groundbreaking work of Colorado Preservation Inc.
Denver has always been on the leading edge when it comes to demonstrating the value of preservation, and the slide shows a few examples of that. Dana Crawford and a group of investors pioneered the renovation of Larimer Square in , a year before the Historic Preservation Act was passed.
More than 95, entries encompassing over 1. Listed places can be found in nearly every county across the nation. Each year Congress appropriates money from the Historic Preservation Fund to support national preservation partnerships.
The NPS manages grant programs that support State, Territorial, and Tribal Historic Preservation Offices; provide disaster relief for historic properties; and enable under-represented communities to survey and nominate properties for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. The National Center for Preservation Technology and Training undertakes research at its in-house laboratories and funds research projects and training events nationwide.
The program creates jobs and is one of the nation's most successful and cost-effective community revitalization programs. Another important economic benefit is heritage tourism. Many people enjoy a deep fascination with the sites where history took place, as well as with the stories they can directly experience by visiting these historic sites.
Heritage tourists, whose travel focuses on historical sites of interest, spend billions of dollars every year and are among the fastest-growing group of tourists.
Historic preservation helps keep communities beautiful, vibrant, and livable, and gives people a stake in their surroundings. It connects people with their past, and with one another. Old structures and historic spaces often present the human scale of history. Their design and construction tell us much about the cultures that created them and about the traditions and events from which our society grew. Historic preservation has been shown to be a key ingredient in stabilizing older communities and bringing citizens together.
Historic buildings provide a sense of stability and provide a tangible link with the past that all can experience. Restoring buildings—rather than building new ones, or demolishing existing ones—is environmentally responsible. It is usually more environmentally-friendly to rehabilitate existing structures and maintain and improve existing infrastructure than to simply destroy and replace them.
Razing historic structures has a triple effect on scarce resources, by throwing away materials and their embedded energy; by replacing it with new raw materials; and by expending transport energy for both. In the series Why X Matters Series. Cite this. About this book Commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act, a critique of the preservation movement—and a bold vision for its future Every day, millions of people enter old buildings, pass monuments, and gaze at landscapes unaware that these acts are possible only thanks to the preservation movement.
Page, M.
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