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National
Register of Historic Places
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Morgan County currently has 25 properties listed in
the National Register of Historic Places. Click
here
to see the official—and growing--list. |
The
National Register of Historic Places is a list of properties the federal
government considers worthy of preservation because of their significance to
American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering and/or culture. In
Indiana, for example, National Register listings include the prehistoric
Angel Mounds (in Vanderburgh County) and the twentieth-century
Indianapolis Motor
Speedway. It also includes many private homes and commercial buildings. In
fact, Indiana has more than 1,000 individual sites and over 150 historic
districts listed in the Register.
The National Register
is administered and maintained on the federal level by the National Park
Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior, and on the state level by
the Division of Historic
Preservation and
Archaeology (DHPA) of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.
Benefits of Listing
There are several
benefits to national register listing. First, your property will be
officially recognized and honored as part of our national heritage. The
recognition is noted in the Federal Register. You also get a letter
certifying that your property has been listed, plus a certificate from the
state. The listing is published in Historic Indiana, an illustrated
booklet of Indiana properties in the National Register published by the DHPA.
Second, owners of income-producing properties listed in the Register may
also be entitled to restoration tax credits or grants. Third, listed
properties, and even those eligible but not yet listed, are afforded certain
protection against state and federally-funded projects that may impact them.
Common Misconceptions
There are several misconceptions about the
National Register that have been hard to dispel.
It is not true that National Register
status limits an owner's freedom to make changes to a property (see box
below). If, however, changes to the property involve the federal government
in any way, including funding or licensing, your project will have to be
reviewed by the DHPA, acting as an agent of the federal government, or in
the case of disagreements, by the federal Advisory Council on Historic
Preservation. This process is called Section 106 review.
There are no restrictions on what you
as a private owner can do with or to your National Register property,
providing you are not using federal or state money to do it. Listing does
not mean the federal government wants to buy the property, nor does it
allow the public access to your property. If you want to alter your property
and you are using private funds, you can do whatever you like. Any
restrictions on what you can do with or to your privately owned property
come from local or city ordinance, not from the Register.
Currently, in Morgan County or its various incorporated cities and towns,
there are no ordinances in place that deal with historic properties.
Is the Property Eligible?
Anybody willing to undertake the
necessary research and fill out the required forms can nominate
anything to the National Register. However, the National Register recognizes
only outstanding old properties, and it's up to the nominator to
prove that the property is outstanding. To do that, the nomination must
address three considerations:
·
Significance: for a property to be considered significant for
its history, the nomination must prove that it has been associated with
important national, state or local events or people. A property may be
significant because it displays the distinctive characteristics of an
architectural type, period or method of construction, because it is the work
of a master, or because it has artistic value. Properties that promise to
help in the discovery of important information about prehistory or
history-mainly archaeological sites-are also considered significant.
·
Integrity: To maintain its integrity, a property must still
have some connection to the qualities that made it significant in the first
place. Is it still in the neighborhood that made it important? Are the
original building materials still in place?
·
Age: As a general rule, buildings must be more than fifty
years old to be included in the National Register, or the events that made a
structure significant must have occurred more than fifty years ago. However,
there are exceptions to this rule for modern structures of preeminent
significance.
Some things are more
difficult to successfully nominate than others. Cemeteries, birthplaces and
graves of historical figures, structures that have been moved, historic
buildings that have been substantially rebuilt (as opposed to restored) and
commemorative properties are generally ineligible for the National Register.
Again, there are exceptions to each of these categories.
Nominating More than One Building
Two kinds of nominations can be made
to the National Register. Individual things--a house, an office building, a
bridge, a ship--can be nominated. Multiple things that are related to each
other can also be nominated. These are typically grouped by geographic
boundaries (such as the East Washington Street Historic District in
Martinsville) or by property type (such as one-room schoolhouses).
Nominating a Property to the National
Register
There
are six steps to nominate a property:
·
Determine if the property meets the criteria mentioned
earlier. Professional advice is' available from the DHPA and from the
headquarters and regional offices of Historic Landmarks Foundation of
Indiana (listed in this brochure). Your local or county historical society
may be able to help, too. In addition, consultants may be hired to do
research and/or prepare the nomination.
·
Get nomination forms and instruction sheets from the DHPA. The
form requires a detailed physical description of the property in its current
state and how it has been altered, a boundary description, current
black-and-white photographs of the property, and a description of the
property's significance. Detailed information on completing the required
forms is available through the DHPA and Historic Landmarks.
·
Return the completed form to the DHPA.
·
The DHPA will review the nomination. If it is complete and
accurate, DHPA forwards it to the Indiana Historic Preservation Review
Board, which meets quarterly to consider nominations. These meetings are
open to the public. Owners of properties under consideration are notified of
the meeting. In cases where someone other than the property owner nominates
a property, the property owner can attend the meeting to object to or agree
with the nomination. If an owner formally objects, the nomination can
nevertheless be forwarded to the National Register staff for a determination
of eligibility, rather than an official listing.
·
The State Review board approves or denies the nomination. If
approved, the property is automatically listed in the State Register at that
time, and the nomination is forwarded to the National Register's office in
Washington, D.C. for consideration.
·
The National Register grants final approval or denial of the
nomination.
You can learn more
about the National Register of Historic Places by logging on to the National
Park Service website. Click
here.
The content of this page
has been taken from a brochure about the National Register distributed by
Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana. |
