National Trust for Historic Preservation Names 2018’s Most Endangered Historic Places in the U.S.
Known as America’s “Mother Road,” Route 66 trails through multiple states.
Photo © Library of Congress
The Ashley River Historic District in South Carolina exemplifies the Palmetto State’s layered cultural heritage.
Photo © Courtesy of Middletown Place Foundation
The Colonial Annapolis Historic District in Maryland made the 2018 list.
Photo © CMT Group
The Memorial Hospital in Nebraska, named after the first Native American licensed to practice medicine in the United States, is currently unoccupied.
Photo © BVH Architecture
The Freeman Houses are considered to be the oldest houses built by African Americans in Connecticut.
Photo © Jordan Sorenson
Mound Bayou, located in the Mississippi Delta following the Civil War, was one of the earliest all-black municipalities in the United States.
Photo © Mississippi Heritage Trust
Mount Vernon & Piscataway National Park in Mount Vernon, Virginia made the 2018 Watch List.
Photo © George Washington’s Mount Vernon
The 2017 hurricanes damaged historic and cultural resources throughout Puerto Rico.
Photo © Parala Naturaleza
Ship on the Desert is an early Modernist house within Guadalupe Mountains National Park.
Photo © Julie McGilvray
The 2017 hurricanes damaged historic and cultural resources throughout Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
Photo © Gerville R. Larsen
“The Walkout Schools” in California played a key role in the national Chicano Civil Rights Movement. These schools include: James A. Garfield High School; Theodore Roosevelt High School; Abraham Lincoln High School; Belmont High School; and El Sereno Middle School (formerly Woodrow Wilson High School).
Photo © Courtesy of LA Conservancy
Larimer Square in Colorado made the 2018 Watch List.
Photo © NTHP
Today, the nonprofit National Trust for Historic Preservation published its annual list of the most endangered historic places in the United States.
Every year, the nonprofit aims to galvanize Americans to help local communities preserve historically significant buildings and sites under threat of destruction from factors such as natural disasters, pressure for infrastructure development, and disrepair. Since the designation’s establishment in 1988, almost 300 threatened places have been identified. Less than five percent of those sites have been destroyed thanks to the awareness and community fostered by the organization.
This year’s designated sites include a neglected early Modernist house in Texas, a Maryland park that, due to construction of a gas compressor, faces the loss of its historic viewshed of Mount Vernon, and five secondary schools—each central to the 1968 East LA student walkouts—which are being threatened with demolition. The full list includes 11 historic places and one-of-a-kind treasures throughout the nation:
● Annapolis’ City Dock Area – Annapolis, MD
● Ashley River Historic District – Charleston County, S.C.
● Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte Memorial Hospital – Walthill, NE
● Historic Resources of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands
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● Isaiah T. Montgomery House – Mound Bayou, MS
● Larimer Square– Denver, CO
● Mary and Eliza Freeman Houses – Bridgeport, CT
● Mount Vernon & Piscataway National Park, Mount Vernon, VA. and Accokeek, MD
● Route 66 – Multiple States
● Ship on the Desert – Salt Flat, TX
● Walkout Schools of Los Angeles – Los Angeles, CA
The nonprofit also included a 12th site, reserved for historical locations with growing, less eminent threats. Four Towns of Vermont’s Upper Valley—charming village centers surrounded by farms and forests in rural Vermont—are at risk of being permanently altered by a development proposal to construct a new planned community.
“From the East L.A. Chicano Student Walkout schools to Route 66, America’s Mother Road, to historic resources in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands severely damaged by last year’s hurricanes, this year’s list reflects both the diversity of America’s historic places and the variety of threats they face,” says Stephanie K. Meeks, president and CEO of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. "We hope this list inspires people to speak out for the cherished places in their own communities that define our nation’s past.”
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