Its always a pleasure to pass along good news on this site.  Here is an alert we received earlier this week from the Preble County Historical Society:

Great news for the Historic National Road in Preble County ! The old toll road house, which stands on the northeast corner of St. Rt. 503 and US 40 ( National Road ) and was slated to be razed has new life! The property was sold and the new owners are restoring it. The new owners reside in one of the other historic structures in the old Euphemia area on the south side of Rt.40, a few hundred feet east of the corner building. The building being saved is the one shown on the Euphemia Gateway Interpretive Sign. All the more reason for it to be saved! Sometimes it seems that preservation efforts fall on deaf ears. And then, once in a while ….. our voices are heard!

The couple who purchased the property was in attendance during... the Preble County Bicentennial Event in Lewisburg, April 2008.

Preservation Ohio congratulations everyone involved with the rescue of this piece of Ohio and National Road history.  The old toll road house is pictured to the extreme left above.

Photo: Old toll road house, Euphemia, Preble County -- Courtesy of Preble County Historical Society

Preservation Ohio Executive Director Thomas Palmer takes a turn in sharing some observations on preservation and revitalization.

There’s an old adage that those working in historic preservation are always influenced by how their involvement began.

It is certainly true for me. I was sped along the path of preservation by my experiences while an undergraduate student at the University of Utah, chief among which watching a community come to grips with the future of an iconic historic building.

The Salt Lake City and County Building, which I usually heard referred to as the “City-County Building,” is a massive sandstone structure of Richardsonian Romanesque design located a few blocks south of the center of downtown Salt Lake City.  Built in the last decade of the 19th century, the unique structure housed the offices of both the Salt Lake City municipal government and Salt Lake County – and was built with room to spare. In fact, the City-County Building was used as the first capitol building for the new State of Utah in 1896, and served in that role until 1915.

It is hard to exaggerate the way that the building dominates the southern part of downtown SLC, or, for that matter, measure the impact that its loss could have on the community.  Nevertheless, when Salt Lake County built a sterile collection of new courthouse buildings twenty blocks south of downtown in the 1980s, Salt Lake City government officials were left with a $50 million question – should the building be preserved, or were its days of serving the community at an end?  Was it simply too expensive to preserve?  Making that decision all the more difficult was the need to conduct extensive seismic retrofitting – a process that would place the impossibly-heavy building on steel and rubber “shock absorbers’ that would move in case of earthquake – due to Salt Lake City’s location on the Wasatch Fault.

There was debate and more debate.  During that time, I first became aware of an organization called the “Utah Heritage Foundation.”  To be honest, at the time I had little to no idea what statewide preservation organizations did, or, for that matter, about the field of historic preservation itself.  All I knew is that was a group that was standing up and being counted in the process.  The Foundation conducted petition drives, facilitated the exchange of information, and championed the project from the start.  One of the very first petition signatures of my life was to support their efforts.

On the evening of the fateful final vote, I could not stay away.  I attended the meeting in the Salt Lake City Council Chambers, housed in the City-County Building, and I was the person that sat directly underneath the life-sized portrait of Brigham Young that still graces that room.  I was in the prime spot, therefore, to watch the Council courageously vote to tackle the massive project.

Many years later, and long after I had left Utah with my wife and newly-born son to return to Ohio for law school, I had occasion to watch the television broadcast covering the announcement of the location for the 2002 Winter Olympics.  The network provided a split-screen view of each candidate community, with a crowd gathered in hopeful anticipation, poised to cheer if their city’s name was read.  Imagine my great happiness when the camera showed the group from Salt Lake City, standing not before Temple Square or the Utah State Capitol, but rather in front of the Salt Lake City & County Building.  Of course, it was their turn to celebrate.

There is power in the built environment, my friends, to bind communities together and to provide a powerful sense of place of Olympic proportions.  I have witnessed similar stories of success in Ohio communities, large and small, as they come to an awareness of the value of their own historic resources.  Those scenes and stories never fail to inspire, or to remind me of what I witnessed many years ago.

Photo: Salt Lake City & County Building -- Shawn Econo/Creative Commons License

From the Ohio Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor:

Itching to get out and enjoy the warmer weather? The Ohio Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor suggests you consider cruising the Lincoln Highway in Ohio as a fun, close-to-home get-away.

The Lincoln Highway is America’s first paved coast-to-coast highway, connecting New York City’s Time Square to the Lincoln Park in San Francisco. It cuts through the northern sector of Ohio from East Liverpool west through Van Wert and the Indiana border. The highway has many of the first aspects of what welcomed the era of the American automobile vacation, including the birthplace of the motor hotel, fast food drive-ins, funky art deco architecture and camping. Some of the first one-stop gas stations and convenience stores saw their early beginnings along this route.

You may not find the world’s largest ball of twine but you will be able to do some serious antique shopping or visit a museum or two. Travel games can be created around identifying Highway period (1913-1928) buildings, historical monuments, spotting courthouses or locating old road alignments. And there is always plenty of home-style cooking and apple pie eating along the way.

Over the years the Lincoln Highway route was improved and changed. Most of the road in Ohio was designated US Route 30, which in many locations now parallels newer sections of that highway. But the old remnants of the road are out there waiting to be found and enjoyed. During its 15 years, some “alignments” of the Lincoln Highway were changed to improve travel. Driving these older alignments today reveals charming small communities waiting to be explored. Today these areas may be unknown, but in the early days of the Lincoln Highway, everyone going east or west would pass through them. They were on the
nation’s map and known by all who traveled the highway. The ol’ Lincoln is out there, waiting to share its charm and history.

For more information and maps, visit www.historicbyway.com or phone 419-468-6773.