This past weekend involved a drive through my hometown of Saint Paul, Minnesota. I love to drive by all the beautifully preserved homes on Summit Avenue and nearby streets. Then a posting on a Saint Paul page on Facebook got me thinking about the National Register of Historic Places for my city and county. With the links below, I’m sure you can find similar lists for your current and ancestral localities. I have read some of the applications and these include details on people, buildings, and organizations. I love looking at the photos of libraries, historical societies, and courthouses in addition to the homes.

The National Park Service pages include these statistics: “Since its inception in 1966, more than 95,000 properties that Americans believe are worthy of preservation have been listed in the National Register. Together these records hold information on more than 1.4 million individual resources–buildings, sites, districts, structures, and objects–and therefore provide a link to the country’s heritage at the national, state, and local levels.”

• National Register of Historic Places: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nationalregister/index.htm
  
  
• National Register of Historic Places database and what’s at the U.S. National Archives: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nationalregister/database-research.htm
  
  
• National Register of Historic Places in Ramsey County, Minnesota: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Ramsey_County,_Minnesota
  
  
• National Register of Historic Places Minnesota: https://mn.gov/admin/shpo/registration/nrhp/
  
  
• Historic Districts and Sites, Saint Paul: https://www.stpaul.gov/departments/planning-and-economic-development/heritage-preservation/historic-districts-and-sites
  
  

© 2021, Paula Stuart-Warren. All rights reserved.