U.S. Department of the Interior

Office of the Secretary

For Immediate Release: August 27, 2001 

WASHINGTON-- Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton today announced the designation of 15 new National Historic Landmarks (NHL) in 11 states and the District of Columbia. The designated sites were recommended to the Secretary by the National Park System Advisory Board for their national significance in American history and culture.

The new landmarks include sites associated with the struggle to desegregate schools in the nation's capital and Virginia, including the John Phillip Sousa Junior High School, in Washington, D.C., and the New Kent School and George W. Watkins School outside of Richmond in New Kent County, Virginia. The new NHLs also include the Samuel Wadsworth Russell House, considered to be the premier domestic example of the Corinthian Greek Revival style in the Northeast; the Modesty, a classic Long Island Sound shellfish dredging sloop; and the Randolph Field Historic District in Texas, which played an exceptional role in the development of the air component of the U.S. Army, and eventually achieved its independence as the U.S. Air Force in September 1947.

"These special sites underscore our heritage and tell stories of periods and events in our history," Norton said. "By preserving these unique sites, we share our culture and rich diversity with our children for future generations to learn from and enjoy." 

The Historic Sites Act of 1935 authorized the Secretary of the Interior to recognize historic places judged to have exceptional value to the nation. The NHL program was established to identify and protect places possessing exceptional value in illustrating the nation's heritage.

NHLs are identified by theme and special studies prepared or overseen by National Park Service (NPS) historians and archaeologists. The NPS often conducts NHL studies in partnership with federal, state, tribal or local preservation officials; the academic community; independent scholars; and others knowledgeable about a particular subject. The sites announced today were designated under the following historic themes: 

Architecture - The following historic sites were nominated for embodying distinguishing characteristics of an architectural type exceptionally valuable for a study of the period, style, or method of construction:

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Architecture (continued)

Nicholas Jarrot Mansion, Cahokia, Ill.
Merchants' Exchange Building, Philadelphia, Pa.
Dutch Reformed Church, Newburgh, N.Y.
Samuel Wadsworth Russell House, Middletown, Conn.
Gibson House, Boston, Mass.
S.R. Crown Hall, Chicago, Ill.

Maritime - The following sites were nominated for their importance in national maritime history:

Modesty, West Sayville, N.Y.
Rudolph Oyster House, West Sayville, N.Y.
J.C. Lore Oyster House, Solomons, Md.

Racial Desegregation in Public Education -The following sites have achieved historic significance during the period of school desegregation in the United States:

John Philip Sousa Jr. High School, Washington, D.C.
New Kent School and George W. Watkins School, New Kent County, Va.

Individual Topics - The following historic sites were chosen for their various individual contributions to the broad scope of American history:

Fresno Sanitary Landfill, Fresno, Calif.
Sheldon Jackson School, Sitka, Alaska
Bethania Historic District, Bethania, N.C.
Randolph Field Historic District, Bexar County, Texas

Landmarks are recognized by the Secretary of the Interior as nationally significant properties of exceptional value in representing or illustrating an important theme in the history of the Nation. These nationally significant properties help us understand the history of the Nation and illustrate the nationwide impact of events or persons associated with the property, its architectural type or style, or information potential.
 

All NHLs are included in the NPS' National Register of Historic Places, which is the nation's official list of the cultural resources and historic properties worthy of preservation. Landmarks constitute 2,341, or roughly 3 percent, of approximately 73,000 sites listed in the National Register; the others are of state and local significance.

Most NHLs are owned by private individuals or groups. Others are owned by local, state, tribal, or federal government agencies, or may have mixed public-private ownership. Owners of NHLs are free to manage their property as they choose, provided no federal license, permit, or funding is involved. The owner agrees to observe simple preservation precepts with respect to the property and receives technical advice and assistance from preservation experts if needed.

Landmark designation offers advantages to owners who wish to preserve their properties. A bronze plaque bearing the name of the NHL and attesting to its national significance is presented to the owner upon request. NHL owners may be able to obtain federal historic preservation funding, when funds are available, and federal investment tax credits for rehabilitation as well as other provisions may apply.

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Site Background

Alaska (Sitka) - Sheldon Jackson School: The Sheldon Jackson School is nationally significant for its important role in the education of Native Alaskans during the first half of the twentieth century and in the transformation of Southeast Native Alaskan cultures during this period. Through education that emphasized English, students were taught to adopt elements of Euro-American culture. Changes in Native Alaskan life were also instigated by the removal of native students from their homes to the school, and by the promotion of skills other than those used in traditional Native occupations. The school also played an important although indirect role, through its students, in the development of Native Alaskan political organization and the pursuit of legal rights for Native Alaskans. The period of significance begins in 1910, when contractors and the school's Native students began construction of the campus's principal buildings. The period of significance ends in 1944 when the school, after amending its original charter, became a junior college and began admitting non-Native students for the first time.
 

California - Fresno Sanitary Landfill: The Fresno Sanitary Landfill was opened in 1937 and closed in 1987. It is the oldest "true" sanitary landfill in the United States, and the oldest compartmentalized municipal landfill in the western United States, holding the service record of more than 50 years of continuous operation. It is the first landfill to employ the trench method of disposal and the first to utilize compaction. At the Fresno site, the layering of refuse and dirt in trenches, compacting the dirt and refuse, and then covering the filled areas daily to minimize rodent and debris problems represented the technique adopted by the builders of modern sanitary landfills, and thus represented a "true" sanitary landfill, not simply a modification on older land-dumping methods.

Connecticut (Middletown) - Samuel Wadsworth Russell House: Nationally significant for its direct association with the founder of Russell & Company, the legendary nineteenth-century leader in the American China trade, the exceptionally well-preserved Samuel Wadsworth Russell House is considered to be the premier domestic example of the Corinthian Greek Revival style in the Northeast. Conceived and executed during the early flowering of a classically derived national esthetic, Ithiel Town's design for this beautifully proportioned "urban villa" was widely disseminated, fostering the rise of the Greek Revival as the universal American style in the antebellum period. Additional significance is derived from a wealth of associated primary source material that provides insight into Town's career as one of the country's first professional architects, his role in the design and construction process, and the genesis of his partnership with Alexander J. Davis.

Illinois (Cahokia) - Nicholas Jarrot Mansion: The Nicholas Jarrot Mansion, built between 1807 and 1810 gives evidence of the western transmission and construction of an early American architecture: the Federal style. Located at the western boundary of the Northwest Territory, within the French Colonial region of the mid-Mississippi River valley, the design and construction of the Jarrot Mansion is an early, rare and extant example of the Federal style, seated in a region that was detached as a territorial wilderness. In addition, the mansion is a demonstration of the far-reaching influence and extent to which the Federal style was transported and reinterpreted. It is an extant example of a solid masonry building constructed within the early development of the Northwest Territory, as an expression of the architectural evolution within the early western expansion of the American territories.

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Illinois (Chicago) - S.R.Crown Hall: S.R. Crown Hall (1950-56), located on the Illinois Institute of Technology's main campus in Chicago, is a critically important monument in postwar construction. Taken on its own terms, the building epitomizes "Miesian" modern architecture as well as the International Style, which has long been considered - and historically accepted - as one of the 20th Century's most important and widely distributed architectural styles. Crown Hall also has both national and local significance because of its close personal and professional association with Mies van der Rohe (who was Director of the Department of Architecture from 1938-1958), and whose architecture and educational philosophy have had, and continue to have, a profound effect on the course of American architecture.

Maryland (Solomons) - J.C. Lore Oyster House: The J.C. Lore Oyster House is

a substantially unaltered marine industrial building overlooking the Patuxent River at the north end of Solomons Island. While most successful seafood processing plants underwent a series of alterations and additions throughout their operation, the Lore structure is a rare surviving example of a relatively unaltered early-20th-century seafood packing plant. The Lore Company was among the first to ship oysters by parcel post. A major supplier of oysters to ACME and Kroger food store chains, the Lore Company helped to make "Patuxent" brand oysters famous throughout much of the Midwest. The intact original processing equipment significantly adds to the importance of this nomination. The facility is part of the Calvert Marine Museum's interpretation of the commercial fisheries of the adjacent Patuxent River.

Massachusetts (Boston) - Gibson House: The Gibson House is nationally significant as a rare and probably unique surviving example of an intact Victorian row house, which serves as a record of urban American domestic life during the decades spanning the Civil War and the First World War. Remarkably preserved, its interior survives as a record of upper-middle-class life from the period of the Gibson family's tenure in the house. Its original interior decorations from the years 1860-1916, along with its collections of family furniture, books, rugs, draperies, paintings, prints, porcelain, decorative objects and utilitarian domestic items, are an important resource for understanding how urban upper-middle-class American households lived in the 

Victorian era. The importance of the house extends to its architectural interiors, which represent the technological advances being made in row houses at the time. The Gibson House contains elements in its exterior and interior design, which were innovative and distinctive for the period.

New York (Newburgh) - Dutch Reformed Church: The Dutch Reformed Church is

nationally significant as an outstanding, largely intact Greek Revival style church designed by Alexander Jackson Davis, one of the style's foremost practitioners. Begun in 1835 and completed in 1837, it is the last extant Greek Revival style church directly attributable to Davis that retains design integrity consistent with the architect's original intentions. It remains perhaps the finest and most extensively documented example from a dwindling body of ecclesiastical work associated with one of the premier architects active in nineteenth century America. The building is distinguished by an exceptionally bold and skillfully designed composition, featuring a monumental pedimented Ionic portico and dramatically scaled entrance. Sited in imposing fashion on a bluff overlooking the approach up the Hudson River from the Highlands, the church commanded the attention of all northbound river traffic, 

at a time when this waterway lay at the very heart of the nation's economic expansion and

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cultural consciousness. The Dutch Reformed Church is a potent reminder of the early part of Davis' career, a time when his gifted hand contributed significantly to the emergence of the Greek Revival style in the United States. It is a dignified statement of the architect's virtuosity and vision, a nationally significant cultural landmark recalling the early history of the American republic.

New York (West Sayville) - Modesty: Modesty is a classic Long Island Sound shellfish dredging sloop. Although the Modesty was built at the end of the age of commercial vessels working under sail and after the peak of the local shellfish industry, she is a nearly unaltered example and typical of the hundreds of sloops engaged in the northern oystering and scalloping industry during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Modesty is described a true "south-sider," or sloop from the southern shore of Long Island Sound, and as "the best possible example of the northern oyster sailing dredger," the New York type. It is believed Modesty, which operated as a scallop dredger from 1923 until at least the early 1930s, is the last extant scallop dredger which operated under sail power.

New York (West Sayville) - Rudolph Oyster House: The Rudolph Oyster House is a substantially unaltered marine industrial building overlooking the Great South Bay on Long Island, New York. While most successful seafood processing plants underwent a series of alterations and additions throughout their operation, the Rudolph structure is a rare surviving example of a relatively unaltered early-20th-century seafood packing plant. Today, the structure is part of the Long Island Maritime Museum's interpretation of the commercial oyster fisheries of the adjacent Great South Bay. The Rudolph Oyster House is the only known surviving structure from the Great South Bay "Blue Point" oyster industry dating from the turn of the century. The structure is still located in West Sayville on the water just off Great South Bay, approximately 600 feet from its original site. If the structure had not been moved it would have been demolished. The present location provides a setting more like its original setting than if it had not been moved. Development at its original location on South Shore Road has destroyed its original integrity and setting. The setting of the structure at the Long Island Maritime Museum includes vintage vessels dating from the turn of the century.

North Carolina (Bethania) - Bethania Historic District: The town of Bethania, as originally laid out in 1759, consisted of twenty-four Residential Lots and an integrated and extensive system of "outlots" surrounding these twenty-four Residential Lots. Both the outlots and the Residential Lots were contained within a "Town Lot" allocated to Bethania by the Moravian church. The area of outlots, in tandem with the Residential Lots, is significant because it illustrates the agricultural patterns of the Bethania Town Lot, a rare example of a German, "open field" agricultural village. The Bethania Town Lot, when studied in its entirety, is also a significant example of Moravian community planning and development. Bethania is the sole example of an open field agricultural village in the six colonial Moravian Town Lots of Wachovia.

Pennsylvania (Philadelphia) - Merchants' Exchange Building: The Philadelphia Merchants' Exchange Building is nationally significant due to its architectural design. It is also important to nineteenth century Philadelphia as it served as a commercial and financial center for the city. 

Until the Civil War, the building served its original purpose as a center for commerce as well as a home for the United States Post Office. This monumental office building was designed by 

William Strickland (1788-1854) in 1831, and is an exquisite expression of the Greek Revival 

style. Strickland was considered one of the leading architects of his day and has for many years been recognized as one of the most highly respected architects in the United States. The Merchants' Exchange Building is believed by many to be William Strickland's most successful and innovative design and is a culmination of Greek Revival elements during the height of the style's popularity. It was Strickland's last major project in Philadelphia and it is believed to be his masterpiece. In the Merchants' Exchange Building, Strickland would demonstrate his growth and evolution as an architect as he progressed from copying the Parthenon in the Second Bank to a more creative, elaborate, and expressive design.

Texas (Bexar County) - Randolph Field Historic District: Randolph Field, Texas, played an exceptional role in the development of the air arm of the United States Army, which eventually achieved its independence as the United States Air Force in September 1947. It was conceived and designed as a model airfield for flying training in the mid 1920s for the fledgling Army Air Corps. The completed "air city" became the site of unique Air Corps schools for flying training and aviation medicine, as well as a landmark in airfield planning and design. In addition, administrative headquarters at Randolph Field, including the Air Corps Training Center, the Gulf Coast Air Corps Training Center, and the Army Air Forces Central Flying Training Command, were keystones in the organizational structure of the Army Air Corps and the Army Air Forces. Their roles were pivotal in the Army air arm's 40-year campaign to become an independent branch of the United States armed forces.

Virginia (New Kent County) - New Kent School and George W. Watkins School

These two schools are associated with the most significant public school desegregation case the U.S. Supreme Court decided after Brown v. Board of Education. The 1968 Green v. New Kent County decision defined the standards by which the Court judged whether a violation of the U.S Constitution had been remedied in school desegregation cases. Henceforth, a decade of massive resistance to school desegregation in the South from 1955-1964, would be replaced by an era of massive integration from 1968-1973, as the Court placed an affirmative duty on school boards to integrate schools.

Washington, D.C. - John Philip Sousa Junior High School: John Philip Sousa Middle School is associated with the struggle to desegregate schools in the nation's capital and is tied to the landmark court case Bolling v. Sharpe, which the U.S. Supreme Court decided the same day as the four public school segregation cases combined in Brown v. Board of Education. The school stands as a symbol of the lengthy conflict that ultimately led to the racial desegregation of schools by the federal government and marked the beginning of the modern civil rights movement.

The historic importance of potential landmarks is evaluated by the NPS and by the National Park System Advisory Board during meetings held twice a year that are open to the public. The Advisory Board includes citizens who are national and community leaders in the conservation of natural, historic, and cultural areas. Recommendations by the Advisory Board are made to the Secretary of the Interior on potential NHLs. Final decisions regarding NHL designations are made by the Secretary. Additional information on the National Historic Landmark program can be found on the NPS website at http://www.cr.nps.gov/landmarks.htm.
 

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U.S. Department of the Interior