Your help will be needed VERY SOON to advocate for reinstating the funding to PHMC in the 2009-10 budget.  A portion of the PHMC funds are granted to hundreds of historical organizations including historic preservation groups, historical societies, museums and other cultural organizations.  If you receive project grant funding for historic preservation, archives, local history or any other project or if your local historical society or museum receives general operating support, we NEED you to reach out to your state legislators (House and Senate) to urge them to reinstate this important funding. 

 

Watch your email inbox in the next week for very important information about advocacy actions.  Take some time right now to think about what will be lost or what will change in your community if this funding is not restored. 

 

Preservation Pennsylvania's shared field services representative Erin Hammerstedt is working with the Borough of Shippensburg and partners at Preservation Pennsylvania and the National Trust for Historic Preservation to help secure funding to conduct a feasibility study of potential uses for the recently restored Dykeman Hatch House building, an 1870's fish hatchery.   Hammerstedt has encouraged the Borough of Shippensburg to apply for a grant from the Louis J. Appell, Jr. Preservation Fund for Central Pennsylvania.  The program is administered by  the National Trust for Historic Preservation and provides grants for planning and education efforts in twenty-one counties across central Pennsylvania.

For more information about the Louis J. Appell, Jr. Historic Preservation Fund for Central Pennsylvania, visit: www.preservationpa.org

To learn more about our Field Representatives' current projects or to request assistance for your own preservation needs, please contact Erin Hammerstedt or Dave Kimmerly. 
 
Dave Kimmerly (215) 353-7625
 
Erin Hammerstedt (814) 571-2444

   The Commonwealth is currently operating a bridge marketing program to encourage the relocation and reuse of historic bridges scheduled for replacement. Successful bridge marketing projects have relocated bridges to parks and college campuses and transferred ownerships to local municipalities and non-governmental organizations. To learn more about the bridge marketing program, visit DGS or PennDOT.

   In 2006, the historic Bollman Bridge, a 1871 wrought iron Warren thru truss bridge, was lifted from its abutments and disassembled. Over the next two years, the bridge was rehabilitated and relocated to serve as an important link on the Allegheny Highlands hiking and biking trail in Meyersdale, Somerset County. The project was a joint effort made possible by PennDOT, the Summit Township Supervisors, the Somerset County Rails-to-Trail Association, the Somerset County Park and Recreation Board, Rolland Rhodomoyer Consulting, the Allegheny Trail Alliance and local residents and volunteers.

    Visitors can access the newly rehabilitated bridge by traveling to Meyersdale, Somerset County and heading east for approximately two miles on the Great Allegheny Passage. To learn more about the Great Allegheny Passage, visit: www.atatrail.org.  

 

   The Commonwealth Speakers program, administered by the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, offers presentations to Pennsylvania non-profit organizations free of charge. The program is comprised of over eighty-eight speakers from diverse professions that were selected for their ability to engage audiences.

   Mindy Crawford, the Executive Director of Preservation Pennsylvania, currently serves as a Commonwealth Speaker and offers presentations on the development of the Lincoln Highway and roadside architecture. Crawford's presentations are entitled "From the Golden Plough to the Golden Arches: A History of Roadside Architecture," and "The Lincoln Highway in Pennsylvania." Using photographs, historic postcards and oral histories, Crawford's presentations transport audiences to the diners, the roadside inns and the gas stations of Pennsylvania's past. To learn more about the Commonwealth Speakers program, visit: Pennsylvania Humanities Council