Preservation posts: the online journal of the Historic Preservation Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Feb. 2014

Preservation Posts - February 2014
In this issue:
- Georgia HPC Training to be held in Athens this April - 2014 Weekend for Wildlife Archaeology Field Trip to Jekyll Island - Historic Streetcar Systems in Georgia Programmatic Agreement - Recent News & Announcements - Upcoming Events
Division Director Dr. David Crass will resume his regular column next month.
Georgia HPC Training to be held in Athens this April
By Marcy Breffle, CLG and Outreach Program Intern
Downtown Athens contains many historic buildings including the 1914 Clarke County courthouse.
This spring, preservationists and historic preservation commission members and staff from across Georgia will gather in Athens for the annual Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) Training. Made possible through a partnership between HPD and the Georgia Alliance of Preservation Commissions (GAPC), the training will take place Friday, April 11, and Saturday, April 12. The training is open to HPC members, staff, preservation non-profit staff, local government officials, city attorneys, and planners. Attendees can expect educational sessions that explore issues and practices affecting HPCs, as well as opportunities to visit outstanding historic resources in Georgia's Classic City.
Friday sessions will take place at the Foundry Park Inn, an Athens institution that blends Southern hospitality with unique local culture. Sessions will include a presentation on preservation law by Mel Hill and James Reap, an interactive Certificate of Appropriateness (COA) exercise with members of the GAPC board, and an opportunity for attendees to "Ask the Expert." Following Friday's educational sessions, attendees will have their choice of historic tours. Options include a tour of historic Athens residences, an expert led tour through the University of Georgia's beautiful North Campus, and a tour of the charming Downtown Athens Historic District from staff of the Athens-Clarke County Planning Department.
An exclusive reception will be held Friday night at the Founders Memorial Garden and House on North Campus. Built in 1857 as a faculty residence, the historic Greek Revival house served as student housing and the state headquarters for the Garden Club of Georgia but is now maintained by the College of Environment and Design. Training attendees will have the opportunity to meet Larry B. Dendy, author of Through the Arch: An Illustrated Guide to the University of Georgia Campus. Copies of Through the Arch, as well as other UGA press books, will be available for purchase and signing.
Saturday sessions will be held on the UGA campus at the College of Environment and Design's recently renovated Jackson Street Building. Attendees can look forward to sessions on architectural types and styles, landscape architecture, and conservation easements. The training will conclude Saturday afternoon with the GAPC annual meeting.
Training opportunities are held throughout the year and all new HPC members are encouraged to attend. HPD requires that any HPC members who serve on commissions in Certified Local Government (CLG) communities must attend training every three years. HPD will also offer American Institute of Architects (AIA) continuing education credits and Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credits for the training.
For more information about the HPC training in Athens and other upcoming events, visit HPD's website at www.georgiashpo.org/conferences.
2014 Weekend for Wildlife Archaeology Field Trip to Jekyll Island
By Aimee Bouzigard, Staff Archaeologist
Scenes from around the site.
Weekend for Wildlife is an event hosted at Sea Island every February that supports the conservation of rare Georgia wildlife. This two-day event offers a wide variety of day tours and excursions allowing participants a chance to interact with experts such as wildlife biologists, historians, and archaeologists, before returning to the luxurious resort at the Cloister for a banquet and auction. Funds raised during Weekend for Wildlife benefit the Georgia Wildlife Conservation Fund and the Nongame Section of the Department of Natural Resources' Wildlife Resources Division.
The theme of the 26th annual fundraiser highlighted the North Atlantic right whale, Georgia's state mammal. This year, Weekend for Wildlife participants could sign up for a day trip to nearby Jekyll Island, which was interestingly called Isla de Ballenas, or Whale Island, by the Spanish during the 16th century. The excursion involved an archaeological investigation of the suspected 1840s home site of Joseph and Flicit duBignon, descendants of one of Jekyll Island's founding European families who owned the entire island from the early 1790s until its sale to the Jekyll Island Club in 1886. Under the supervision of HPD archaeologists, Division Director Crass, and both the Jekyll Island Historic Resources Director and archaeologist, the participants assisted in preliminary excavations. By digging shovel tests (40cm-wide round holes) and screening the dirt through quarter-inch wire mesh, the excavators were able to recover remnants of broken household items like ceramic dishes and wine bottles. Other neat finds were fragments of a clay smoking pipe-stem, 19thcentury gun parts, and Native American pottery, including a sherd of Altamaha Red Filmed dating to the Mission Period when the Spanish began exploring Georgia's barrier islands that were inhabited by the Guale.
After a successful morning of excavation, the participants had a sumptuous lunch at Crane Cottage, followed by a tour of other family sites around Jekyll, including the HortonduBignon House ruins, duBignon Cemetery, and duBignon Cottage. The day trip proved to
be a unique experience in both archaeological investigation and historic preservation. HPD's archaeology section has played a part in Weekend for Wildlife for the past several years, offering participants an opportunity to rediscover a piece of Georgia's rich cultural history, and get their hands dirty all while having fun. Weekend for Wildlife is one the nation's most successful conservation events, raising nearly $9 million for the protection of Georgia's nongame wildlife since its first event in 1989.
More information about Weekend for Wildlife is available here. Jekyll Island is home to numerous attractions, including the Horton House Historic Site, the Wanderer Memorial, the Jekyll Island National Historic Landmark District, and the Georgia Sea Turtle Center. More information is available here.
Historic Streetcar Systems in Georgia Programmatic Agreement
By Stephanie Jordan, Transportation Projects Coordinator
Track Construction, 1907 (Source: Atlanta History Center)
In 2012, the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) funded the development of a historic context, prepared by New South and Associates Inc., for the vast number of resources associated with Georgia's historic streetcar systems. The streetcar, also known as the trolley, was the primary means of transportation to-and-from work, home, and leisure activities for Georgians of all social and economic classes before the rise of the automobile. Today, Georgia's streetcar history may be difficult to identify, but clues remain within the landscape, buildings, and streetscape that give us insight into the patterns of urban and suburban development during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 2013, the GDOT launched a website to promote the resources identified during the development of the context and the historical locations of these resources in Atlanta. The website uses GIS to map the historic routes of trolley lines and can be found at georgiastreetcars.org. The context is available as a PDF download here.
Georgia's historic streetcar resources include buildings (powerhouses, car sheds, and stables), structures (bridges, culverts, railroad grades, and tracks), objects (mile markers/historic markers), sites, and districts. Since these resources are historic (50 years of age or older), they are surveyed and documented, but without a complete understanding of their significance, they can be difficult to evaluate. The context provides archaeologists and historians a better understanding of these resources and a framework for their identification and evaluation under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). Section 106 requires federal agencies (and their applicants) to take into account the effects of their undertakings on historic properties (both structural and archaeological). As part of this process, federal agencies, or their applicants, are required to consult with the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO). The Historic Preservation Division (HPD) is Georgia's SHPO.
In order to streamline the Section 106 process and avoid unnecessary delays in project construction, GDOT and FHWA in consultation with HPD have begun to develop a Programmatic Agreement (PA). PAs are legal agreements among a federal agency, its applicants, a state's historic preservation office, and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) that establish an alternative process for Section 106 consultation under the NHPA. PAs differ from Memorandums of Agreement (MOAs) in that MOAs are used to resolve known adverse effects on historic properties that result from a specific federal undertaking, while PAs can spell out a consultation process for projects whose effects cannot be fully determined prior to project implementation. In our case, the PA would establish a standard treatment process for the identification, evaluation, and resolution of adverse effects for historic buried streetcar rail lines, including track, bedding, cross-ties, rail, and paving. Once in place, this PA would eliminate case-by-case consultation, resulting in faster project turnaround, the ability to focus on higher-priority environmental issues, and a more effective and efficient approach to preserving and protecting our historic and cultural resources. More information on transportation projects in Georgia is available on our website.
Recent News & Announcements
Twin City Historic District Listed in the National Register of Historic Places (press release - February 24)
Upcoming Events
March 12, 2014 - Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill Tour - Atlanta Part of the Atlanta Preservation Center's 2014 Phoenix Flies celebration, National Register Specialist Lynn Speno will lead a tour of The Stacks. Dating from 1881, this complex of buildings for the Fulton Cotton Spinning Company operated until 1981. The mill, along with the Cabbagetown neighborhood, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. In 1995, the mill was purchased for conversion to loft apartments. The Stacks is a vibrant community and a superb example of adaptive reuse of a historic structure. Details
March 15, 2014 - The National Register of Historic Places and Atlanta - Atlanta This event is part of the Atlanta Preservation Center's 2014 Phoenix Flies celebration. The National Register of Historic Places has had a big impact on the City of Atlanta, from helping document the stories of the city's historic resources and neighborhoods to rewarding their preservation. Join National Register and Survey Program Manager Stephanie L. Cherry-Farmer to explore the National Register in Atlanta: learn the basics of the National Register program and what it really means for a property to be "listed." Then, uncover fascinating stories behind some of Atlanta's lesser-known, unique (and perhaps, even infamous) National Register-listed resources. Details
March 24-26, 2014 - Section 106: Agreement Documents seminar - Atlanta This advanced seminar focuses on memoranda of agreement and programmatic agreements under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. Learn how to survive and thrive during the agreement process through careful analysis, clear writing, and good negotiation. Review the available tools, guidelines, alternatives--and nonalternatives--to reach a favorable conclusion to the process. An agenda is available online at www.npi.org. Held by the National Preservation Institute in cooperation with HPD and the Georgia Department of Transportation.
March 27-28, 2014 - Identification and Management of Traditional Cultural Places seminar - Atlanta "Traditional Cultural Places" (TCPs) are important for the roles they play in community cultural traditions, beliefs, and activities. These resources must be considered in planning under the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, Executive Orders 12898 and 13007, and other authorities. This seminar explores definitions and methods of identifying and managing impacts on TCPs. An agenda is available online at www.npi.org. Held by the National Preservation Institute in cooperation with HPD and the Georgia Department of Transportation.
April 11-12, 2014 - 2014 Georgia Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) Training - Athens Through a shared partnership, the Historic Preservation Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the Georgia Alliance of Preservation Commission will offer a twoday educational training for HPC members, staff, local government officials, and preservationists. The training will begin on Friday morning and conclude early Saturday afternoon. Friday sessions will take place at the Foundry Park Inn, with sessions on Saturday at the University of Georgia's College of Environment and Design. HPC members who serve on commissions in Certified Local Government (CLG) communities are required to attend training every three years. A full schedule will be posted here in early march. Registration is now open! Click here to download the registration form.
Hotel reservations are required by Saturday, March 15th to ensure that you receive the special discounted rate. Links to the hotels are available in the registration packet link above.
The Georgia Alliance of Preservation Commissions is offering three scholarships to members wishing to attend the training. The scholarships will cover the full registration amount of $125. Applications must be postmarked by March 5. Applications are available here .
September 26-28, 2014 - 9th biennial "Preserving the Historic Road" conference Savannah "Preserving the Historic Road" is the leading conference dedicated to the identification, preservation, and management of historic roads. This year's conference is co-sponsored by HPD and numerous other Georgia organizations. Details
Please send your comments or suggestions to charlie.miller@dnr.state.ga.us.
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