There’s an old, secluded church in the mountains of West Virginia that holds a hidden history. Beginning in the 1920s, black coal miners worshipped in a separate camp. Today, New Salem Baptist Church is listed as one of the 11 most endangered historic sites in the United States. .
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has published an annual list of such places since 1988. Carol Quillen is the organization’s new president and CEO. A historian by training, she is the first female president of Davidson College in North Carolina.
“I’ve studied the afterlife largely through texts, not advertisements,” Quillen told NPR. “And the difference between imagining a relationship with the afterlife through the experience of a position and reading an e-book in a library is profound. ” I love how those positions, which in themselves involve layers and layers of stories, invite us to join our stories to those those positions involve.
Quillen said the preference for keeping the New Salem Baptist Church came from a white Catholic woman whose father was a milkman in the city. He recruited not only the descendants of the church’s early parishioners, but also local ATV drivers who were able to see and appreciate the church from a mountain trail.
“I love stories like that, where a preservation task can mobilize other people who wouldn’t come together to work together on something vital to them,” Quillen said. “And in these paintings, transform what the position can mean. “
Black citizens of Eatonville, Florida, have been looking to keep their hometown for decades. Eatonville, one of the first all-black autonomous cities in the United States, was immortalized in Zora Neale Hurston’s 1937 old novel, Her Eyes Were Looking at God. The mythical anthropologist and Harlem Renaissance man once described her hometown as “the city with five lakes, three croquet courts, three hundred brown skins, three hundred smart swimmers, masses of guavas, two schools, and no jails. “
In a 2015 NPR article reported through Renata Sago, citizens dreamed of Eatonville being reborn as a year-round heritage destination and remembered it as a haven in the days of Jim Crow.
“We wouldn’t lock our doors and the kids would just come out and play,” recalls elderly resident Maye Saint Julian. “And everybody knew everybody. And to all the people we honor so much: James Brown, B. B. King, Lionel Hampton — those other people came to Eatonville regularly.
Ideally, Eatonville and many of the other sites on the list, such as the Cindy Walker House, could eventually become more well-known cultural destinations. Located in Mexia, Texas, this dilapidated design with white frames was where a notable and unsung figure in country music lived for many years. Walker was one of the few female composers of her time. He has written country criteria and number one hits for Roy Orbison, Merle Haggard, Elvis Presley, and more.
After his death in 2006, Walker’s home remained abandoned. A handful of enthusiasts and heirs created a base in his honor and bought it in 2022.
“They discovered all kinds of things there,” Quillen said. They discovered their typewriter. They discovered their country music awards. They discovered songs that no one had ever heard before. One of those songs is a lost demo, titled “Tennessee Rain. “”, which can be heard in the audio edition of this story.
Over the past three decades, the National Trust has scored some triumphs with its annual list of threatened sites. Dozens of them have been saved, including the national battleground of Antietam in Maryland, which has virtually become the mall for grocery shopping, and Little Rock Central High School, where young Arkansas academics helped oppose a legacy of legal segregation in 1957.
Now established by Congress as a National Historic Site, it remains a premier public school in operation and a middle school for civil rights education in the country.
“We don’t need to spray those sites with ScotchgarEd and remove them,” Quillen said. “We need to revitalize them to be active and exciting places for other people to pass on and to be able to continue to provide other people in combination now and in the future. “
Here are the rest of the endangered historic places on this year’s list:
Estate Whim Museum, Frederiksted, St. Croix, U. S. Virgin IslandsAccording to the U. S. Army: “Established the colonization of St. Croix through Denmark, Estate Whim was a plantation that generated cotton and sugar for export. The lives and legacies of those who were enslaved by plantation owners and those who continued to paint there for meager wages for a century after emancipation are inextricably connected to the site, which now houses a museum, library, archives, and public programs. Repeated hurricanes have destroyed many of the historic buildings and structures of the Museo del Capricho Estate.
Hudson-Athens Lighthouse, Athens, New York: “Opened in 1874, the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse is one of many lighthouses ‘in the middle of the river’ on the Hudson River. Today, it is one of only two still standing. However, due to erosion and other conservation issues, technical reports imply that the building is at risk of collapsing within three years if no action is taken.
Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, California: “Little Tokyo is one of only four remaining Japanese neighborhoods in the U. S. It is located in the U. S. and one of the oldest neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Its uniqueness is threatened by large-scale transit and progression projects and the displacement of people. Historic businesses and restaurants.
Minute Man National Historical Park, Walden and nearby landmarks, Massachusetts: “Minute Man National Historical Park and the surrounding areas of Concord, Lexington, Lincoln, and Bedford are home to places of great significance in American history, in addition to Walden Pond and Woods and the preserved homes of authors and environmentalists: Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau of Little Women. A major expansion task at nearby Hanscom Field Airport could particularly increase private jet traffic, leading to the construction of upd noise, car traffic, and negative environmental and climate impacts.
Roosevelt High School, Gary, Indiana: “Theodore Roosevelt High School in Gary was built in 1930 in particular to meet the educational desires of African Americans and graduated notable alumni, adding professional athletes, well-known actors, and members of the Jackson 5. The school has been vacant and deteriorating since 2019. “
Tlingit Extended Family Homes of Sitka, Sitka, Alaska: “The Tlingit extended family homes of Sitka, in southeastern Alaska, are important to the history and long-term history of the Lingit (commonly spelled in English as ‘Tlingit’). ). For many years, the matrilineal extended family design of multigenerational extended families living in combination in extended family homes has been discouraged in favor of the Western practice of living in nuclear families. Today, only 8 of the original 43 extended family homes remain. and even fewer serve as classic-style family homes.
U. S. Legation in Tangier, Tangier, Morocco: “In 1821, the U. S. Legation of Tangier in Morocco was donated to the United States through the Moroccan Sultan as a sign of friendship, thus becoming the first U. S. public good located and later served as U. S. headquarters. mission for a record 140 years. The Legation is now a cultural centre, museum and study library, and is in urgent need of structural stabilization and maintenance following the recent collapse of an adjacent building.
Wilderness Battlefield Area, Orange County, Virginia: “The Battle of the Wilderness marked a very important turning point in the Civil War, but today not all landscapes of ancient significance are protected. Proposed new large-scale developments, which add millions of square feet of commercial knowledge centers and thousands of homes, can have a negative effect on vital historic sites and landscapes and degrade the guest experience.