What’s your Preservation Inspiration?

The end of the year is almost here, and we are preparing to open a fresh calendar and cross into the new year. As we do, the Park Cultural Landscapes Program will be reflecting on some of the places, landscapes, and experiences that led us each into the landscape preservation field.

Want a wider view? 

This month, the National Park Service is highlighting the variety of jobs and opportunities available in the agency. Check in at the NPS homepage in December to discover careers in the National Park Service and meet some of the individuals in those roles.

And we want to hear from you!

Do you work or volunteer in a preservation field? Where were you first introduced (formally or informally) to cultural landscapes? Please join us to reflect on the past, prepare for the new year, and prepare for the next 100 years of the National Park Service.

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Kristi Lin & Manzanar National Historic Site


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Return to Homeland 

 Xunaa Shuká Hít in Glacier Bay National Park 

The Xunaa Shuká Hít –roughly translated as “Huna Ancestor’s House” - is the first permanent clan house in Glacier Bay since Tlingit villages were destroyed by an advancing glacier over 250 years ago.

The Huna Tribal House is a gathering place where tribal members can connect to their homeland through ceremonies, workshops, camps, tribal meetings, and events.  The building’s design reflects traditional styles, and it also meets the needs of contemporary tribal members and visitors to this Alaska park.

The Huna Tribal House is a product of almost 20 years of planning between the National Park Service and the Hoonah Indian Association. A team of clan leaders, craftsmen, planners, architects, and cultural resource specialists came together to design the 2,500 square foot cedar structure. 


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NPS Photo


The design is based on accounts and photographs from historical and ethnographic records. The tribe actively participated in all phases of the project, including development of the project mission, preparation and review of the Environmental Assessment, creation of cultural elements for the facility, and development of interpretive plans. Tribal craftsmen carved totem poles to flank the facility. 

The dedication ceremony took place on August 25, 2016, coinciding with the National Park Service Centennial.


Huna Tribal House Project (Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve website) 

Discover more about this collaborative project, including time lapse videos of construction, photos of the dedication ceremony, news items, and a step into the spiritual homeland of the Huna Tlinglit clans.  


Happy Thanksgiving, from our table to yours! Staff of Region III (Southwest) NPS gathered for Thanksgiving dinner at the office. Photo taken in 1943 or 1944, during World War II. (Harpers Ferry Center, HPC-001994)

Happy Thanksgiving, from our table to yours!


Staff of Region III (Southwest) NPS gathered for Thanksgiving dinner at the office. Photo taken in 1943 or 1944, during World War II. (Harpers Ferry Center, HPC-001994)

Sheltered bays, sandy beaches, and craggy cliffs define the perimeter of St. John Island, rising to an inland landscape of steeply sloped mountains and thick vegetation. The Virgin Islands National Park covers three-fifths of St. John, the smallest of the U.S. Virgin Islands.  A layered history of civilizations, both free and enslaved and dating back thousands of years, takes shape upon the canvas of the island’s spectacular scenery.


The Annaberg Sugar Factory

Virgin Islands National Park, U.S. Virgin Islands

Following the Danish colonization of St. John in 1718, the events of the plantation era altered the natural vegetation and transformed the island landscape.  

The new settlers, with the labor of enslaved natives and Africans, cleared land, planted crops, constructed roads and walls, and established factories to process the sugar cane. The Annaberg Sugar Factory landscape includes historic, architectural, and archeological resources that represent a rural eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sugar plantation, containing the agricultural fields and industrial complex used during the height of production on the estate.

The cultural landscape reflects the history of sugar production on St. John, as well as the adaptation of Danish colonial architecture to the island environment and the technological advances that occurred during this historic period (1779-1867). 


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A view of the site shows the topography and the windmill tower rising above the trees (Survey HABS VI-18, Library of Congress). 

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As we continue the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) in Wyoming, we explore another aspect of cultural history in Grand Teton National Park - and a very active story of preservation:  


Hey, Dude: Preservation at White Grass Dude Ranch

Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

In 1913, Harold Hammond filed a homestead claim within Teton National Forest and began to develop an area of land known as White Grass Flats. Hammond, who was born in Idaho, had worked as a horse wrangler for the construction crews building the Jackson Lake Dam, and he later found work at the Bar BC Dude Ranch in the Jackson Hole area. 

George Tucker Bispham, the son of a prominent banker in the Philadelphia area, was one of the first dudes to stay at the Bar BC Ranch. It was likely during this time that Bispham and Hammond met and agreed to become business partners in managing the White Grass Ranch. While Hammond’s original intention (according to his homestead claim) appears to have been to establish a working cattle ranch, the White Grass Ranch began housing summer dudes as early as 1919.


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Hammond Cabin, circa 1925, prior to additions (Photo courtesy of Frank Galey’s family, in White Grass Ranch Cultural Landscape Report).

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This week, as we continue to celebration the 50th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), we pay a visit to Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. 

Jackson Lake Lodge

Developed between 1953 and 1960, Jackson Lake Lodge was the first major lodge complex within the national park system to be designed in a modern architectural style. From the 1920s until World War II, the National Park Service constructed buildings and facilities in what was known as the Rustic style, and surrounding landscape design was similarly naturalistic. The Jackson Lake Lodge represents a break in this tradition. 

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Thurmond: Traces of a West Virginia Boomtown

In the 1870s, Captain William Dabney Thurmond acquired the land that would become the town of Thurmond, West Virginia. Knowing that the mountains surrounding the New River were rich in coal, Captain Thurmond decided to speculate on a site on the river despite its remote location and steep topography. 

Strategically positioned alongside a railway, the town of Thurmond grew as the coal and timber industries expanded in the gorge. The first house in the town was built in 1884, and it was soon followed by a post office, hotels, industrial buildings, and other business. 


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Thurmond depot and railroad bridge in the early 20th century (NPS/New River Gorge National River 2434, from the Cultural Landscape Inventory).

The town became a key stop along the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Railroad mainline, which was completed in 1873 and connected the Chesapeake Bay to the Ohio Valley. The town of Thurmond did not become a stop on rail line until after 1888, when the bridge across the New River was proposed. 

Two creeks flowed down the slope on the opposite side of the river from the C&O rail line and provided direct access to the valuable coal in the upper gorge. The new bridge provided a route to move the supply of coal to the trains.

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The Buckner HomesteadAlthough it’s only a few hours away from metropolitan areas of Washington State, the Buckner Homestead Historic District landscape is an entry into another time period. The features of the landscape - buildings, orchards,...

The Buckner Homestead

Although it’s only a few hours away from metropolitan areas of Washington State, the Buckner Homestead Historic District landscape is an entry into another time period. 

The features of the landscape - buildings, orchards, hand-dug irrigation ditches, even a swimming pool - illustrate six decades of development and help to describe the agricultural and settlement history of the remote Stehekin Valley. 

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