Informational Events – Page 16 – Preservation of Historic Winchester

Friday Roundup: Events, Lectures and More!

It’s been a busy week at PHW as we wrapped up another fiscal year. But the administrative drudgery is not all we have been up to. Get ready to mark your calendars!

Tomorrow, June 2, 10 AM, the Clowser Foundation will hold their annual memorial service at the Clowser House, 152 Tomahawk Trail, in Shawneeland. Come out and see the progress that has been made in stabilizing this Frederick County landmark!

Also tomorrow at 1:30 PM, PHW will host the make up Preservation Month walking tour event. Look for the sign at the Harrison and Johnston law offices, 21 S. Loudoun St., to meet with a guide. Keep your fingers crossed for good weather!

Tuesday, June 5, starting at noon, PHW will host Eric Bennung, Vice President of Acrymax Technologies, Inc., to discuss the care and maintenance of historic metal roofs. We will be meeting at the Hexagon House, 530 Amherst St., in the first floor board room. We will be able to seat approximately 25-30 guests. This event is free and open to the public, but we strongly recommend carpooling due to the limited parking at the Hexagon House.

Wednesday, June 6, Turner Ashby Chapter 184 United Daughters of the Confederacy will host their 152nd Confederate Memorial Day service at Stonewall Cemetery in Mount Hebron Cemetery, 305 E. Boscawen St. The event starts at 7 PM and will be held rain or shine. The speaker is Mr. Steve Ritchie, “Defending Home and Hearth.”

Don’t forget to get your award nominations in to PHW before Monday, June 11, so we can finalize our lineup of award recipients at PHW’s Annual Meeting on Sunday, June 24, 3 PM at the Hexagon House.

And look toward July when the Godfrey Miller Historic Home and Fellowship Center presents their Summer Lecture Series, Our Community Response to World War I. The lectures will be held at 28 S. Loudoun St., 7 PM, on the following dates:
Tuesday, July 10 – Memorial Avenue 1924 WWI Plaques, Gene Schultz
Thursday, July 12 – Soldiers Stories behind the Plaques, Gene Schultz
Tuesday, July 17 – WWI and the Women of Winchester, Nancy Braswell
Thursday, July 19 – Historical Significance of Veteran Robert Conrad’s Home, Sandra Bosley
The cost is $10 per lecture or $35 for the entire series.

Friday Roundup: Awards, Walking Tours, and Rain Recovery

We are a little over halfway through National Preservation Month, but there’s still plenty of time to nominate some worthy projects for PHW’s annual preservation awards. See past winners and download a nomination form here. Nominations should be returned to PHW by June 11, no later than 5 PM, for consideration for a 2018 award.

Speaking of Preservation Month, we will regretfully postpone our planned walking tour of Potato Hill for Saturday, May 19. There are reports of afternoon thunderstorms in the forecast. Stay safe and as dry as you can, and we will let you know our make up day and time ASAP.

If you are facing flooding issues and water penetration, Nicholas Redding at Preservation Maryland compiled the following list of resources to help you dry out:
• “After the Floodwaters Recede: A Checklist of Things to Do,” Maryland Historical Trust
• “Treatment of Flood-Damaged Older and Historic Buildings,” National Trust for Historic Preservation
• “Repairing Your Flooded Home,” American Red Cross
• “Selecting a Contractor After a Natural Disaster Strikes,” Maryland Historical Trust
• “Tips for Handling Insurance Claims for Historic Properties Following a Disaster,” Maryland Historical Trust
• “Drying Wet Books and Records,” Northeast Document Conservation Center

When the weather breaks and you can enjoy the downtown again, PHW has updated the PDF of the “Explore the Old Town Mall” brochure to version 1.2. There are a few more text edits yet to come before a physical reprint, but if you spot any more pesky typos now, please let us know!

Friday Roundup: Keeping up with the Preservationists Edition

First, a note from Timothy Youmans on the temporary relocation this week of the Planning and Zoning & Inspections offices during the City Hall renovation:

Please note that the Planning Dept. and the Zoning & Inspections Dept. currently located in Suite 318 on the 3rd floor of Rouss City Hall will be relocating to the basement level offices of the Creamery Bldg. at 25 S. Kent St on April 26. While temporary, the relocation will extend into the Fall of this year as the 3rd floor of City Hall is completely renovated into the Development Services Concourse offering improved customer service for our development partners in the community.

To access the temporary offices, please enter the Creamery Bldg. from the rear parking lot entrance. The stairs and elevator connecting to the offices in the basement are immediately to the right after entering the rear of the building. The banks of parking closest to the north side and rear of the building and the double bay of parking just out from the rear bay of spaces are the only parking spaces situated on the Winchester City property and therefore available to customers of offices in the Creamery Bldg. All of the other spaces are reserved for other properties and should not be used by those coming to the City’s temporary offices in the basement.

This week for Friday Photos, we added 21 images of 145 Baker St., 125 W. Boscawen St., and 320 S. Cameron St. from our Revolving Fund cabinet collection. Catch them all at the top of the Flickr photostream.

You may have heard that Flickr will be merging with SmugMug. At the present time, it does not appear this will impact our Friday Photos and other photo collections – they’re all staying put with the same links you’ve been using. From the FAQ: “Over time, we’ll be migrating Flickr onto SmugMug’s technology infrastructure, and your Flickr photos will move as a part of this migration—but the photos themselves will remain on Flickr.”

With Apple Blossom drawing ever closer, you may want to read about The Rediscovery of 5 ‘Extinct’ Types of Heritage Apple. As a friendly reminder, the PHW office will likely be closing at 3 PM on Thursday, May 3 and remain closed through the Apple Blossom weekend festivities. Stay safe and have a happy Bloom!

Friday Roundup: Indices, Trees, Photos and Fun!

One of the research resources we have at PHW that has been long neglected is a thick stack of photocopies of Mutual Assurance Society records. PHW volunteers obtained these copies in the 1970s as we were preparing for the 1976 Architectural Inventory. These insurance policies are very useful in seeing how early buildings grew and expanded, even giving details about the uses of certain wings, additions, or outbuildings. These are helpful for dating buildings that predate the Sanborn maps.

Thinking these records had already been sorted and it would be easy to find a policy for a quick fact check, it was quite a surprise to find that was not the case at all. After an afternoon of painstakingly deciphering names, it seemed more efficient to see if anyone had indexed these records already. Indeed, such a resource exists! The University of Mary Washington Department of Historic Preservation has a publicly searchable index of policies with a variety of search field options. In the case of these photocopies, the policy number is often the most legible identifying information. The document images are not available from this search, so this resource may not be of use to all researchers. However, you may want to experiment with the owner name search to see if a previous owner may have had a policy. For example, we know that George Norton had a Mutual Assurance Society policy on his home. By searching for his name, it brings up his Amherst St. home, as well as two other policies he took out at the same time. However, be careful! As with all old records, spelling can be haphazard and transcribers may not be able to make modernizations to help researchers. In Norton’s policies, we have creative street names like Piccadilla, Boscowan, and Loudon. If you find a record, don’t forget to consult the list of abbreviations to find out what was insured on the property and its construction materials.

Many of us have never seen, but heard the tales of the American chestnut tree. With the ongoing efforts to revive the species through blight-resistant hybridization, the question arose as to how large the trees really were. You can read and listen to a recent NPR interview of Roanoke College Biologist Rachel Collins, who warns us to temper our expectations of the mature chestnut hybrids reaching the massive proportions reported in historic documents due to some simple math confusion between diameter and circumference. If you are interested in learning more about the history and efforts to restore the American chestnut, visit the American Chestnut Foundation at www.acf.org.

Of course, it would not be Friday without some photos. This week’s upload has pushed us over 10,000 photos milestone in our Flickr collection! (“Only” 9,500 are publicly viewable, with the remaining 500 mostly historic photos or artwork we do not have rights to share.) About 50 older photos were identified, added to albums, and made public for searchers. We also added 36 photos of 518 and 401-403 South Kent Street, both Revolving Fund properties, again at the beginning of the rehabilitation. Catch them at the top of the Flickr photostream.

Lastly, mark these dates on your calendars for upcoming PHW events! (Times may be subject to change.)

May 19, 2 PM: National Preservation Month walking tour, highlighting Winchester historic plaque and Jennings Revolving Fund properties in the Potato Hill neighborhood. Volunteers are still needed as tour guides! Contact PHW at phwinc.org@gmail.com or 540-667-3577 to add your name to the guide list.

June 24, 3 PM: PHW’s Annual Meeting and Preservation Awards, planned for the Hexagon House rear yard.

Friday Roundup: Interactive Map, Friday Photos, and a Call for Volunteers

Winchester City has launched a new, comprehensive address-based search tool. Using the new search, you can now find in one spot:

Tax Parcel Information
Refuse and Recycling Collection Day
Leaf Collection Area #
Fire Department First Due Station
Voting Ward and City Council Member
Voting Precinct
Elementary School District
If the property is in the following or not:
o Enterprise Zone
o Zoning District
o Historic District
o Corridor Enhancement District

This week, we added 36 photos to our Flickr account from the Revolving Fund files. Catch some images of 609 and 617 South Kent Street, and 211, 215, 501, 502, 510, 512, 511, and 513 South Loudoun Street at the top of the photostream. Note that 211 and 511 South Loudoun are not Revolving Fund properties so they are not in the Revolving Fund album.

PHW is looking for volunteers to help us lead a preservation-themed walking tour in May to coincide with National Preservation Month (day and time pending). Volunteers should be relatively familiar with the downtown and adjacent residential areas in the Potato Hill neighborhood. Familiarity with architecture may be helpful but is not required. The text will be written for you and provided for review in advance, similar to Holiday House Tour docent scripts. We anticipate the guides will need to be able to walk and talk for an estimated distance of about 0.75 to 1.25 miles. If you are interested in being on the call list for this project, please let us know at phwinc.org@gmail.com or at 540-667-3577.

Friday Photos, Podcasts, and Upcoming Office Schedule

It was a short week for us with the snow interruption, but we were still able to add 33 photos to our Flickr account. Like last week, we are continuing to digitize all the photos from the Revolving Fund files, with this week’s batch including 20-22 and 24 South Kent, 211 and 219 South Kent (part of the Hodgson estate purchase), and 317 North Kent. You can catch the new additions at the top of the photostream, or at the end of the Revolving Fund album.

If you are looking for preservation podcasts to add to your life, you might want to visit the newly-created www.preservecast.org site to look through Preservation Maryland’s back catalog of over 60 episodes, with a new episode posted on Mondays. The topics are often but not always Maryland-specific, but also include best practices and more general preservation topics. If you want a sample recommendation, try out the episode on the Enchanted Forest – if you’ve been in the area for a while you might have fond memories of this attraction during its first life from 1955-1989. (If you are super excited about this story and want to relive a bit of your childhood, Clark’s Elioak Farm will reopen for the season on March 30 – find more on their website www.clarklandfarm.com.)

Please note the PHW Office will be hosting a school field trip on Friday, March 30, and closed on April 2 and 3 for Easter vacation. We should still have a weekly email for you next week, but if we don’t, have a safe and happy holiday weekend!

Around the Internet: FSA Photos, State Budget Worries, and Historic Plaques

Happy Friday! If you survived the wind with your power intact, we have a few things for you to explore and read around the internet:

1. The Shorpy photo archive featured the Texaco station at 819 S. Braddock St. with some great vintage road signs, gas pumps, and cars, and the Handley High School lawn and the smokestack in the background. Many more images from the Farm Security Administration (FSA) are available. Try starting with this narrowed search link at the Library of Congress to explore Winchester circa 1940. I am fond of the image taken at Orndoff’s marble yard, at the intersection of Loudoun and Boscawen Streets.

2. The Valley Conservation Council has put together a list of some land conservation and historic preservation-adjacent items to watch and act against in the state budget. Part of the proposed cut of mitigation funds is aimed at reducing mercury in the Shenandoah River. There is also concern over the Land Preservation Tax Credit. As stated by VCC, “Landowners put their property under easement in 2017 with the understanding that the limit would go back to $50k – to change the rules on them now after they have permanently preserved their land is unfair.” If you are similarly worried about these and other proposed budget cuts, VCC has compiled the historic data and the contact information for you to reach out and state how important conservation funding is to our area.

3. Similarly, Preservation Virginia has highlighted some additional concerns of budget cuts facing the Department of Historic Resources.

4. We also forgot to congratulate Tom and Deanna Stouffer for 125 E. Clifford becoming one of now 154 houses in the Winchester Historic District to receive the oval plaque. If you were not able to visit them at Holiday House Tour time, you truly missed a special home. You can get a little taste of that in our Flickr album.

Friday Roundup: Photos, Webinars, and Internships

Happy Friday! This week we have added 41 photos to our Flickr account. These images were in our Revolving Fund file cabinet, which is getting a good spring cleaning. These files were primarily for properties PHW participated in or surveyed as potential purchases. The highlights include a number of houses on South Kent Street, the old B&O train station on East Piccadilly Street, and a number of 8 East Cork Street photos and bits that were recorded when PHW’s office was located there. Catch all of them at the top of the photostream.

The National Trust is hosting the webinar “Telling Women’s Stories at Historic Sites” on Wednesday, March 14, 3:00–4:00 p.m. The Preservation Leadership Forum’s next webinar focuses on “Including Women in the Sequel: Re-Interpretation and Telling the Full History at Historic Sites.” Panelists from Belle Grove, the Oneida Community Mansion House, and the Pauli Murray House will discuss their work telling women’s stories—including identifying source materials, developing interpretive plans, and building narratives that tell a broader American story. Register for the webinar at the Forum website or see what webinar topics interest you in their archives.

Teachers and students, are you looking for a summer job opportunity in history, architecture, or landscape architecture? Heritage Documentation Programs, NPS seeks applications from qualified students for 2018 summer employment documenting historic sites and structures of architectural, landscape, and technological significance throughout the country. Duties may involve on-site field work and preparation of measured and interpretive drawings and written historical reports for the HABS/HAER/HALS Collections at the Prints and Photographs Division of The Library of Congress. Projects last 12 weeks, beginning in late-May or early-June. Applications are due March 16, 2018. Learn more and find the application instructions at Facebook and NPS.

Friday Round Up: Historic Buildings, Tax Credits, and Demolition

Preservation has been in the news lately. First, you may have seen the Winchester Star article on the latest Historic Tax Credit studies. You can watch the accompanying video interview on YouTube or below:

If you are up for a little light reading on historic tax credits and their impact in Virginia, you can read the full 94 page Preserving the Past, Building the Future or the four-page Executive Summary to hit the highlights. You may also want to read the similar economic analysis Virginia’s Historic Tax Credit Program prepared by Baker Tilly. Both studies back up the assertion of Historic Preservation Tax Credits paying for themselves over time and positively impacting not just buildings but entire communities.

You may also want to read the Winchester Star article on the approval of the demolition of a property on Sharp Street at the Board of Architectural Review last night. PHW President Bruce Downing was present to voice our concerns about the demolition of this property essentially by neglect. Sharp Street as a whole is a very architecturally and historically significant, if often overlooked, area of our Historic District. We hope the proposed changes and new construction, which are scheduled to return at a future meeting, will continue to honor and reflect the unique character of that block.

Friday Roundup: Newspapers, Photos, Grants, and More!

First, an addendum to last week’s post on newspaper archives. We missed one provided through the Handley Library, Advantage Digital Archive. This archive provides OCR searchable text and full page images of some of Winchester’s more obscure historical newspapers, including:
Virginia Gazette (1787-1796)
Winchester Gazette (1798-1824)
Republican Constellation (1814-1814)
Daily Item (1896-1897)
Morning News Item (1906-1907)
Daily Independent (1923-1925).

The search functions are similar to the other newspaper archives covered last week, and browsing is available for those looking for a surprise or coverage on a certain day. We are happy to report a quick test search for “Burgess” turned up a new tidbit on the first owner of the Hexagon House, James W. Burgess, that we had not previously seen. It corroborated other accounts of his furniture business in 1870 (about the time construction started at the Hexagon House.) His furniture was used in the newly built home of John M. Miller near Middletown. The residence in question is likely the Cooley House, referenced in Maral Kalbian’s Frederick County, Virginia: History Through Architecture on page 93.

While reviewing some of the files being moved around for painting, we found some images that had not been scanned. Sixteen images have been added to Flickr, including eight that were attached to a display board for the Kurtz, possibly in a fundraising or open house event in the early 1990s. The remaining eight photos may include some duplicates of images already scanned from the slide collection on North Loudoun Street, the Virginia Woolen smokestack, and one image of the John Wall House at 11-17 S. Kent during demolition. You can catch the photos right at the top of the photostream.

As we are also working on the files during the office shuffle, we have made a few edits to our online directory of program and event files. While it feels like we started this index just yesterday with two boxes of Kurtz Cultural Center files, we anticipate adding an eighth box to the storage collection of programs and events from the last ten years. Although these files are of limited interest to researchers outside of PHW, this is a bit of a teaser for the next round of indexing we hope to tackle for our themed research files on topics or locations. No precise timeline is available (yet!) but the indexing will likely take place in the spring.

The National Trust has several grant deadlines approaching, including African-American Cultural Heritage Action Fund (Jan. 31), National Trust Preservation Funds (Feb. 1), Cynthia Woods Mitchell Fund for Historic Interiors (Mar. 1), and Johanna Favrot Fund for Historic Preservation (Mar. 1). You can see the full list and details on how to apply and what qualifies for each grant here.

Preservation Virginia is also taking applications for their Most Endangered Historic Places list of 2018. If you know a site worthy of recognition that is imperiled with damage, neglect, or development pressure, you can find the application and instructions here. Nominations are due by March 9.