Utah State Historical Society
Originally published on June 3, 2021 11:38 am
An unassuming roadside motel that s a spiritual home to the blues. A crumbling Navajo trading post standing right by Monument Valley, and an old filling station that offered refuge to Black travelers during Jim Crow. Campsites for crusading civil rights demonstrators in the 1960s and ones that housed Chinese railway workers a century before.
These are among the most endangered historic sites in the U.S. right now, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Every year, the organization issues a list of buildings and other places threatened by development, climate change or neglect.
Gallops Island. (Courtesy Liz Cook/Boston Harbor Now)
The Boston Harbor Islands have made it onto an annual list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. The nonprofit National Trust for Historic Preservation compiles the the list, which draws attention to historic places threatened by neglect or development. In the case of the Harbor Islands, the risks come from climate change, sea level rise and erosion.
More than 300 places have been listed in the 33-year history of the endeavor, and in that time, fewer than 5% of listed sites have been lost, according to the group s website. Past years lists have included the Gay Head Lighthouse in Aquinnah and the Malcolm X House in Boston.
(This is a story of) Americans wanting to have an impact and do something at great peril to themselves and their family, Howard said. It’s a story of people who loved America when America didn’t necessarily love them, but they wanted (more rights) for their children.
Howard is in the process of looking for funding to preserve the homes. Their inclusion in the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s list could be a gamechanger for their efforts; Malone-France said since the nonprofit’s first list came out more than 30 years ago, they have lost less than 5 percent of the more than 300 endangered places named since.
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