Questions and Information Issues regarding National Historic Landmarks
This article describes information system glitches, factual inconsistencies, and factual errors in official information regarding National Historic Landmarks of the United States. It is hoped that this recording may facilitate discussion and corrections. In three batches, a total of 27 items have been reported to the National Park Service, and may be under review.
A main source on NHLs is the nation-wide NHL list document, a 118 page PDF document. It may be the basis for some fields in NHL summary webpages, which seem to introduce errors in translation from it. But the NHL list itself has errors in its counts of NHLs in some states, particularly regarding cases where a ship has been moved from one to another or there has been a delisting. Sometimes the state counts are updated, sometimes not.
Specific errors in the November 2007 version of the NHL list document:
Items reported to the National Register in a batch during December 2007 are as follows. (The report was sent to one office's email address on December 20, and then to a different office on December 27, and the latter was acknowledged on December 28 with a statement that "We will look into" the matters raised.) The items reported (numbered 1-5):
Possible error items reported to the National Register in a batch on Jan 3, 2008:
Five error items reported to National Register on January 28 are as follows (numbered 23-27 for consistency with previous two reports sent):
101 Ranch Historic District, which is very incomplete, and Kenne which gives the wrong name for the site but carries content about the site. It seems that the "Kenne" name in the webpage is entirely a typo, as there is no mention of "Kenne" in the 1974 NRHP Inventory-Nomination for the site or in any other available documents. The duplication causes there to be 21 NHL webpages in Oklahoma, while there are only 20 NHLs in the state. It seems the description in the "Kenne" NHL webpage should be transfered to the "101 Ranch Historic District" webpage, and the Kenne webpage should be deleted. UPDATE 3/2/2008. The "Kenne" webpage has been deleted, and now there are just 20 NHL webpages for Oklahoma. 101 Ranch Historic District description is fairly long, so it may have received description from the former Kenne webpage.
Apparent errors in NHL webpages not yet reported to the NPS:
The NHL webpage description, and its title, and the same title used in the NHL List document, all seem to refer to the later NRHP historic district, not to the two-building NHL. The title of the NHL webpage and title given in the NHL List is: "Central of Georgia Railroad Shops and Terminal", which seems to be a reasonably edited version for the wrong NRHP. It seems to me that both NHL webpage and NHL List title should be changed to, say, "Central of Georgia Railroad Depot and Trainshed" to describe the NHL buildings, instead. And the NHL webpage description and photos should be changed to describe the buildings, not the 1978 larger district. Note, the 1978 NRHP inventory document is clear that it covers a district of many buildings, viaducts and so on that includes the 2 buildings that are the NHL. The 1978 NRHP was not an expansion of the NHL, it was a separate NRHP.
Of the 22 samples listed for New York, I was able to obtain 4 listed there which were not obtainable through the regular system. These are: Camp Eagle Island (listed there as Eagle Island Camp; Eldridge Street Synagogue, Gerrit Smith Estate, and Manitoga. Of the 22 samples, I did not check them all but one, Modesty (sloop), is not in fact available there (Modesty is available through regular search).
URLs like that work for most NHL sites. Note the NHLS in the URL string. However, for Old Bent's Fort, which is another NHL, the URL differs, the URL string includes NRHP in place of NHLS:
Try harder on the St Paul's Cathedral site in Buffalo New York, which has 2 associated REFNUMs, 73002298 and 87002600. The NPS server directed to the 2nd REFNUM, which fails.
Try harder on St. Paul's Church National Historic Site, 66000580, which shows up in the NPS search interface, but that is a NRHP and NHS, but not an NHL
Try Downsville Bridge, an NRHP that is not a NHL, and that does not show up in the NPS search interface, with REFNUM 99000503:
Try Colorado Chautauqua, became NHL in 2006, was NRHP in 1978, displays in NPS interface but cannot connect to it:
The photos to accompany NRHP document for Bellevue Avenue Historic District Photos accompanying Bellevue Avenue Historic District: 5 photos (32 KB) includes 2 photos of Bellevue in state of Georgia and 3 photos of Chateau-sur-Mer, one of the Bellevue Avenue mansions in Rhode Island. This photo set is filed under reference number 72000023 of the Bellevue Avenue Historic District.
In the NPS Focus system, the PDF document at the REFNUM for Cedarcroft National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination 71000693 that should be Cedarcroft (32 KB)|date=, 19 |author= |publisher=National Park Service}} instead links to NRHP Inventory-Nomination for Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia. The corresponding photos document Photo set to accompany Cedarcroft NRHP text (Accompanying 1 photo, exterior, from 1971. (32 KB)</ref>, however, does include a picture of Cedarcroft.
On the other hand, at the refnum for Carpenter's Hall, the Carpenter's Hall text and photo sets appear properly.
Note NRHP text and photos for Lightship No. 83 "Relief" are available on-line at the National Park Service, but mistakenly under the refnum 89002462 that belongs to Lightship WAL-605 Relief, instead of under the correct refnum 75001852. NRHP text and photos for Lightship WAL-605 seem unavailable on-line.
Regarding Juliette Gordon Low Historic District, which has refnum 66000276. The NRHP Inventory/Nomination text filed under that number is that of another NHL, Fort James Jackson (Fort James Jackson text is also available under its correct reference number). The accompanying photos are of the Low district. See Incorrect text (that of Fort James Jackson when it should be Juliette Gordon Low District and see Photos to accompany NRHP Inventory-Nomination (text not available on-line): Photos, exterior and interior, from 1870, 1907, 1920, 1980, and 1986.
The NHL summary (or the NHL list?) mentions that 2006 documentation is available, and in fact a sample nomination for it is available here.
CHECK IF THEY'RE AVAILABLE IN THE NOMINATIONS AREA. SOMETIMES TEXT IS IN NOMINATIONS AREA, while photos under regular system. For example, Sheldon Jackson School in Alaska.
From the Florence Mills House article: "There is contention that the actual address of her home was 220 West 133rd Street, and that a mistake was perpetuated from a photo of the house being mislabelled as being on West 135th Street in a New York Evening Journal article at the time of her death. [1] The 220 West 133rd Street building has also been demolished and replaced. [1] The mistake in landmarking the West 135th Street address is acknowledged implicitly by the National Park Service, in stating that "For a number of years, this four-story row house was thought to be Mills home for most of her tragically short life". [2]"
NPS lists Andalusia as being in Philadelphia but it is really outside Phila., in Bucks County, placed in wikipedia List of NHLs in PA outside of Philly.
Ships designated NHLs are movable. Where is Nantucket (lightship)? See talk page for that article. It is NHL listed in Bridgeport CT, but last reported in Oyster Bay, New York in January 2007, and planned to be moved to Staten Island. The Fir (ship) is NHL listed in New York, but reportedly in Seattle. The current List of National Historic Landmarks in New York reports on both, counting the Nantucket as being in New York State and the Fir as being a former NYS landmark.
Does the NHL summary page describe where the ship was located at time of designation? It seems that the NHL summary should perhaps be clear about that, and/or report also on updates. There are probably not very many ships that are NHLs (how many?) and they do not move very often (how often?).
Often a landmark receives its NRHP listing and its NHL designation on the same day. Just a few of many possible examples where this has happened are:
There are a number of cases where an official date for NRHP listing is exactly one year different than an official date reported for NHL listing. Wikipedia articles on NHLs may report both dates, drawn from two official sources but reported together within the NRHP infobox. The juxtaposition makes it easy to note cases when the NRHP was given on the same day and month, but year different by one year, vis-a-vis the NHL date. This gives rise to the question whether there is an error in one of the dates. Among the NYS NHLs, these include the following (reported in January 3 batch):
Unreported items:
Potential discepancies reported in batch of January 3 are numbered items:
Unreported items:
Potential discrepancies reported in batch of January 3 are numbered items:
Unreported items:
For the NHL in Massachusetts, the NHL webpage gives "Derby Summerhouse" as the name, but the NRHP text gives "Derby Summer House". It seems that "summerhouse" is not a word, and appears wrong.
The NHL webpage and the NHL list article give "Exchange" as the name, but NRHP text document gives "Exchange Building" or "The Exchange" and one other alternative name. "Exchange Building" seems preferable to merely "Exchange". Wikipedia article now is Exchange Building
For the Circular Congregational Church and Parish House, the NRIS name is that, the NRHP Inventory/Nomination document is that. But the NHL webpage for the site gives name "Parish House of the Circular Church" and shows pictures only of the Parish House. Hmm, not clear if there is a mistake here or not. It could be the nomination of the whole was denied. Need some further document on the decision to name the parish house a NHL, but not the rest. Note, the NHL date and NRHP date are the same date in 1973 or so.
From Talk of Louisville KY wikiproject:"I recently learned of an excellent way to get information on any NRHP in Kentucky. You can just call the Kentucky Heritage Council at (502) 564-7005 and ask for Marty Perry. He will e-mail you a PDF on any property you want, which contains 10+ pages of information on the property's history and historical importance, as well as it's architectural importance. They include plenty of footnotes, meaning the information in the PDF will be totally acceptable for Wikipedia as it's from published sources (the PDF itself probably counts as a published source anyway, due to the NRHP process, they're archived in various libraries on Microfilm). Most properties have 5+ pictures as well, which I believe to be in the public domain as it's through the National Park Service, a federal level agency, but don't quote me on that.
Just to avoid getting Wikipedia a bad rap with them, I remind you that this is a really cool service they don't have to provide (they could make you go to the library and print off microfilm), so please be nice to Mr. Perry. --W.marsh 22:51, 23 June 2007 (UTC)".
Questions and Information Issues regarding National Historic Landmarks
This article describes information system glitches, factual inconsistencies, and factual errors in official information regarding National Historic Landmarks of the United States. It is hoped that this recording may facilitate discussion and corrections. In three batches, a total of 27 items have been reported to the National Park Service, and may be under review.
A main source on NHLs is the nation-wide NHL list document, a 118 page PDF document. It may be the basis for some fields in NHL summary webpages, which seem to introduce errors in translation from it. But the NHL list itself has errors in its counts of NHLs in some states, particularly regarding cases where a ship has been moved from one to another or there has been a delisting. Sometimes the state counts are updated, sometimes not.
Specific errors in the November 2007 version of the NHL list document:
Items reported to the National Register in a batch during December 2007 are as follows. (The report was sent to one office's email address on December 20, and then to a different office on December 27, and the latter was acknowledged on December 28 with a statement that "We will look into" the matters raised.) The items reported (numbered 1-5):
Possible error items reported to the National Register in a batch on Jan 3, 2008:
Five error items reported to National Register on January 28 are as follows (numbered 23-27 for consistency with previous two reports sent):
101 Ranch Historic District, which is very incomplete, and Kenne which gives the wrong name for the site but carries content about the site. It seems that the "Kenne" name in the webpage is entirely a typo, as there is no mention of "Kenne" in the 1974 NRHP Inventory-Nomination for the site or in any other available documents. The duplication causes there to be 21 NHL webpages in Oklahoma, while there are only 20 NHLs in the state. It seems the description in the "Kenne" NHL webpage should be transfered to the "101 Ranch Historic District" webpage, and the Kenne webpage should be deleted. UPDATE 3/2/2008. The "Kenne" webpage has been deleted, and now there are just 20 NHL webpages for Oklahoma. 101 Ranch Historic District description is fairly long, so it may have received description from the former Kenne webpage.
Apparent errors in NHL webpages not yet reported to the NPS:
The NHL webpage description, and its title, and the same title used in the NHL List document, all seem to refer to the later NRHP historic district, not to the two-building NHL. The title of the NHL webpage and title given in the NHL List is: "Central of Georgia Railroad Shops and Terminal", which seems to be a reasonably edited version for the wrong NRHP. It seems to me that both NHL webpage and NHL List title should be changed to, say, "Central of Georgia Railroad Depot and Trainshed" to describe the NHL buildings, instead. And the NHL webpage description and photos should be changed to describe the buildings, not the 1978 larger district. Note, the 1978 NRHP inventory document is clear that it covers a district of many buildings, viaducts and so on that includes the 2 buildings that are the NHL. The 1978 NRHP was not an expansion of the NHL, it was a separate NRHP.
Of the 22 samples listed for New York, I was able to obtain 4 listed there which were not obtainable through the regular system. These are: Camp Eagle Island (listed there as Eagle Island Camp; Eldridge Street Synagogue, Gerrit Smith Estate, and Manitoga. Of the 22 samples, I did not check them all but one, Modesty (sloop), is not in fact available there (Modesty is available through regular search).
URLs like that work for most NHL sites. Note the NHLS in the URL string. However, for Old Bent's Fort, which is another NHL, the URL differs, the URL string includes NRHP in place of NHLS:
Try harder on the St Paul's Cathedral site in Buffalo New York, which has 2 associated REFNUMs, 73002298 and 87002600. The NPS server directed to the 2nd REFNUM, which fails.
Try harder on St. Paul's Church National Historic Site, 66000580, which shows up in the NPS search interface, but that is a NRHP and NHS, but not an NHL
Try Downsville Bridge, an NRHP that is not a NHL, and that does not show up in the NPS search interface, with REFNUM 99000503:
Try Colorado Chautauqua, became NHL in 2006, was NRHP in 1978, displays in NPS interface but cannot connect to it:
The photos to accompany NRHP document for Bellevue Avenue Historic District Photos accompanying Bellevue Avenue Historic District: 5 photos (32 KB) includes 2 photos of Bellevue in state of Georgia and 3 photos of Chateau-sur-Mer, one of the Bellevue Avenue mansions in Rhode Island. This photo set is filed under reference number 72000023 of the Bellevue Avenue Historic District.
In the NPS Focus system, the PDF document at the REFNUM for Cedarcroft National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination 71000693 that should be Cedarcroft (32 KB)|date=, 19 |author= |publisher=National Park Service}} instead links to NRHP Inventory-Nomination for Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia. The corresponding photos document Photo set to accompany Cedarcroft NRHP text (Accompanying 1 photo, exterior, from 1971. (32 KB)</ref>, however, does include a picture of Cedarcroft.
On the other hand, at the refnum for Carpenter's Hall, the Carpenter's Hall text and photo sets appear properly.
Note NRHP text and photos for Lightship No. 83 "Relief" are available on-line at the National Park Service, but mistakenly under the refnum 89002462 that belongs to Lightship WAL-605 Relief, instead of under the correct refnum 75001852. NRHP text and photos for Lightship WAL-605 seem unavailable on-line.
Regarding Juliette Gordon Low Historic District, which has refnum 66000276. The NRHP Inventory/Nomination text filed under that number is that of another NHL, Fort James Jackson (Fort James Jackson text is also available under its correct reference number). The accompanying photos are of the Low district. See Incorrect text (that of Fort James Jackson when it should be Juliette Gordon Low District and see Photos to accompany NRHP Inventory-Nomination (text not available on-line): Photos, exterior and interior, from 1870, 1907, 1920, 1980, and 1986.
The NHL summary (or the NHL list?) mentions that 2006 documentation is available, and in fact a sample nomination for it is available here.
CHECK IF THEY'RE AVAILABLE IN THE NOMINATIONS AREA. SOMETIMES TEXT IS IN NOMINATIONS AREA, while photos under regular system. For example, Sheldon Jackson School in Alaska.
From the Florence Mills House article: "There is contention that the actual address of her home was 220 West 133rd Street, and that a mistake was perpetuated from a photo of the house being mislabelled as being on West 135th Street in a New York Evening Journal article at the time of her death. [1] The 220 West 133rd Street building has also been demolished and replaced. [1] The mistake in landmarking the West 135th Street address is acknowledged implicitly by the National Park Service, in stating that "For a number of years, this four-story row house was thought to be Mills home for most of her tragically short life". [2]"
NPS lists Andalusia as being in Philadelphia but it is really outside Phila., in Bucks County, placed in wikipedia List of NHLs in PA outside of Philly.
Ships designated NHLs are movable. Where is Nantucket (lightship)? See talk page for that article. It is NHL listed in Bridgeport CT, but last reported in Oyster Bay, New York in January 2007, and planned to be moved to Staten Island. The Fir (ship) is NHL listed in New York, but reportedly in Seattle. The current List of National Historic Landmarks in New York reports on both, counting the Nantucket as being in New York State and the Fir as being a former NYS landmark.
Does the NHL summary page describe where the ship was located at time of designation? It seems that the NHL summary should perhaps be clear about that, and/or report also on updates. There are probably not very many ships that are NHLs (how many?) and they do not move very often (how often?).
Often a landmark receives its NRHP listing and its NHL designation on the same day. Just a few of many possible examples where this has happened are:
There are a number of cases where an official date for NRHP listing is exactly one year different than an official date reported for NHL listing. Wikipedia articles on NHLs may report both dates, drawn from two official sources but reported together within the NRHP infobox. The juxtaposition makes it easy to note cases when the NRHP was given on the same day and month, but year different by one year, vis-a-vis the NHL date. This gives rise to the question whether there is an error in one of the dates. Among the NYS NHLs, these include the following (reported in January 3 batch):
Unreported items:
Potential discepancies reported in batch of January 3 are numbered items:
Unreported items:
Potential discrepancies reported in batch of January 3 are numbered items:
Unreported items:
For the NHL in Massachusetts, the NHL webpage gives "Derby Summerhouse" as the name, but the NRHP text gives "Derby Summer House". It seems that "summerhouse" is not a word, and appears wrong.
The NHL webpage and the NHL list article give "Exchange" as the name, but NRHP text document gives "Exchange Building" or "The Exchange" and one other alternative name. "Exchange Building" seems preferable to merely "Exchange". Wikipedia article now is Exchange Building
For the Circular Congregational Church and Parish House, the NRIS name is that, the NRHP Inventory/Nomination document is that. But the NHL webpage for the site gives name "Parish House of the Circular Church" and shows pictures only of the Parish House. Hmm, not clear if there is a mistake here or not. It could be the nomination of the whole was denied. Need some further document on the decision to name the parish house a NHL, but not the rest. Note, the NHL date and NRHP date are the same date in 1973 or so.
From Talk of Louisville KY wikiproject:"I recently learned of an excellent way to get information on any NRHP in Kentucky. You can just call the Kentucky Heritage Council at (502) 564-7005 and ask for Marty Perry. He will e-mail you a PDF on any property you want, which contains 10+ pages of information on the property's history and historical importance, as well as it's architectural importance. They include plenty of footnotes, meaning the information in the PDF will be totally acceptable for Wikipedia as it's from published sources (the PDF itself probably counts as a published source anyway, due to the NRHP process, they're archived in various libraries on Microfilm). Most properties have 5+ pictures as well, which I believe to be in the public domain as it's through the National Park Service, a federal level agency, but don't quote me on that.
Just to avoid getting Wikipedia a bad rap with them, I remind you that this is a really cool service they don't have to provide (they could make you go to the library and print off microfilm), so please be nice to Mr. Perry. --W.marsh 22:51, 23 June 2007 (UTC)".