With a new season of baseball upon us and what I regard as the real start of spring, it’s an opportune time to look back at Pennsylvania’s rich baseball history. Pennsylvania has been a part of baseball from the beginning with the Philadelphia Athletics’ participants in the first professional season in 1876 with the creation of the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs.[i] The Athletics were removed after the first season, but two other professional Pennsylvania teams emerged in the 1880s—The Philadelphia Phillies, founded in 1883 and now the oldest, continuously operating franchise ..read more

Several years ago, my colleagues and I at the PA SHPO compiled a history of preservation achievements in Pennsylvania. This interesting trek through the preservation timeline was published in the Winter 2016 issue of Pennsylvania Heritage magazine and was added as a chapter in the current statewide historic preservation plan, #PreservationHappensHere. This week in honor of Women’s History Month, I’m taking a deeper dive into the role of women in Pennsylvania’s preservation accomplishments. I’ll say right off the bat that I have by no means captured all the accomplishments by all the women in ..read more

March is Women’s History Month and an opportunity to highlight and celebrate the vital role of women in Pennsylvania and American history. This week’s post is another in our “Resource Round-Up” series, which we occasionally publish during important months as a guide to learning more about the older and historic places and spaces in Pennsylvania that reflect that month’s theme. This one highlights just a few sources related to women’s history in Pennsylvania. About Women’s History Month According to the Women’s History Month 2024 website, the first nationally recognized “Women’s History Week ..read more

The Pennsylvania Baseline Survey Team is thrilled to share the final year of findings from the Pennsylvania Baseline Survey. From June 2022 to March 2024, Year 3 of the Baseline Survey took place in 20 counties. To date, over 6,854 new resources have been recorded in 503 municipalities thanks to the efforts of our Baseline Survey Teams! Once the final Year 3 survey is in – Butler and Lawrence county surveys are underway – the total number of NEW resources added to PA-SHARE in Year 3 will be close to 8,000. Check back for a blog post about what survey teams found in these counties in a few mon ..read more

Are you a highly skilled historic preservationist with National Register knowledge and experience? The Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office (PA SHPO) is seeking a Historic Preservation Specialist to work as a National Register reviewer, focused on assisting the public with determinations of eligibility and National Register nominations. Join us in preserving the treasured history of Pennsylvania. Description of Work The PA SHPO uses its resources to educate, encourage and enable Pennsylvanians to value and preserve Pennsylvania’s history and culture. Our dedicated team of preservat ..read more

The Battery Philadelphia is another example of a successful historic tax credit project. This latest installment of “Historic Tax Credits @ Work” shows how a classic “white elephant” was re-energized into a unique lifestyle campus that offers space for people to live, work, stay, and gather under one roof. About Delaware Station Located at 1325 Beach Street in Philadelphia’s Fishtown neighborhood , the Delaware Station of the Philadelphia Electric Company (PECO) (2015RE01646) is a massive 5-story, reinforced concrete building consisting of three major components: the boiler house, a turbine h ..read more

A few years ago, the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP), in collaboration with the National Park Service Chesapeake Bay and the Chesapeake Conservation Partnership, launched an ambitious project called the Chesapeake Mapping initiative (CMI). The purpose of the project was to identify and map older and historic places that reflect African American history in the Chesapeake Bay watershed in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. The project in Pennsylvania focused on adding new resources in the southcentral counties in the watershed: Adams, Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Lancaster ..read more

Now that 2023 is officially in the PASS, let’s look back on another successful year of archaeological site recording and survey efforts throughout Pennsylvania. PASS by Numbers In 2023, 309 new archaeological sites were added to the PASS files, bringing the statewide total to 27,010 recorded sites. Sites were recorded through a variety of sources, summarized by the table below: Source Sites Recorded % CRM 215 69.58% University Research 40 12.95% SHPO Managed Survey 15 4.85% PHMC Research 14 4.53% SPA 12 3.88% Other 9 2.91% Individuals 4 1.29% The majority of new sites we ..read more

While I am still enjoying the holiday high (and feeling blissfully stuffed), I am also looking forward to the many initiatives the PA SHPO has in the works for 2024. Small but mighty. The Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office is a relatively small government bureau. A staff of just 28 carry out responsibilities of nearly twenty federal and state historic preservation programs as well as deliver training and education programs to the public and partner agencies. In 2023, PA SHPO staff engaged with over 30,000 people at 450 different events. Routine work at the PA SHPO is anything but ..read more

This is part of a biannual blog series highlighting the agreement documents executed by PA SHPO in accordance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act and its implementing regulations. Between July 1 and December 31 of 2023, PA SHPO has been a signatory to approximately eleven (11) Section 106 agreement documents with five different federal agencies as part of consultation for the resolution of adverse effects to historic properties. Below illustrates a selection of the agreement documents executed within the past six months. Memorandum of Agreement between the U.S. Army Cor ..read more