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NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES
Frequently Asked Questions
Download a pdf-format guide to Arkansas architectural styles.
- What is the National Register of Historic Places?
- How are decisions made about what is listed on the National Register?
- Isn't it true that only buildings or sites connected with famous people get listed on the National Register?
- What does the National Register mean to me?
- Will someone tell me what color I have to paint my house?
- Will I be able to leave my property to my children or to anyone I want?
- Will anybody be able to stop me if I want to tear down my property?
- Will I have to open my house to the public for tours?
- Don't historic buildings and archaeological sites stop a lot of government projects like highways and water systems that are really important for a community?
- What are the National Register Criteria?
- What kinds of properties can be included in the Register?
- What kinds of significance must properties have in order to be registered?
- What level of significance must a property have in order to be registered?
- What is a historic properties survey?
- What do you mean by "historic properties?"
- Why do a survey?
- What information does a survey produce?
Q: What is the National Register of Historic Places?
A: The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the
nation's cultural resources worthy of preservation. It is the federal
government's way of recognizing Arkansas' historically and architecturally
important properties that are 50 years of age and older.
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Q: How are decisions made about what is listed on the National Register?
A: All people judging a property must do so by federally established
criteria. These criteria are designed to assure that the property is
significant in one of the areas of architecture, archeology, or history.
To be architecturally significant, a property must be an excellent example
of a style, or method of construction, or the work of a master craftsman or
architect. To be archaeologically significant, it must contain or have
contained information important in our history or pre-history. To be
historically significant, it must be associated with events or persons that
made an important contribution to the history of the area and/or broad
patterns of our national history.
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Q: Isn't it true that only buildings or sites connected with famous people
get listed on the National Register?
A: No. The criteria allow for much more than recognizing the achievements of
a few well-known individuals. The National Register is designed to
recognize the accomplishments of all people who have made a contribution to
our country's history.
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Q: What does the National Register mean to me?
A: The National Register records and recognizes the contribution to our
heritage that your property represents.
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Q: Will someone tell me what color I have to paint my house?
A: No. If you are using your own money, you can do anything you choose to a
National Register listed property, including paint it any color you select.
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Q: Will I be able to leave my property to my children or to anyone I want?
A: Yes. National Register listing in no way affects the transfer of property
from one owner to another.
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Q: Will anybody be able to stop me if I want to tear down my property?
A: No. In no case can National Register listing alone prevent you from
tearing down a structure. If you tear down a National Register structure,
however, and replace it with an income-earning structure or site, you will
not be able to deduct the cost of demolition for federal income tax
purposes. This is a tax provision to discourage the destruction of
Register properties. Tax provisions to encourage the maintenance of such
properties also exist.
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Q: Will I have to open my house to the public for tours?
A: No. National Register listing does not require that you open your house
to the public.
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Q: Don't historic buildings and archaeological sites stop a lot of government
projects like highways and water systems that are really important for a community?
A: No. Historic resources act only as a caution light, not a stop light, in
the planning of federally funded projects. State historic preservation
officers try to work with the agencies funding these projects from the very
earliest stages. They strive to reduce the likelihood of conflict or of
wasted time and money by identifying the historic concerns early and
incorporating them in planning the project. In any case, the existence of
a historic building or site cannot, on its merits alone, stop a construction
project of this type.
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Q: What are the National Register Criteria?
A: The National Register of Historic Places is the nation's roster of
Properties important in the history, architectural history, archeology,
engineering, and culture of the United States, its States and regions, and
its communities. The National Register is maintained by the National Park
Service,and expanded through nominations by individuals, organizations,
State and local governments, and Federal Agencies.
The National Register criteria identify the range of resources and kinds
of significance that will qualify properties for listing in the National
Register. They are applied to each nomination in order to determine
whether the nominated property qualifies. The criteria are also applied by
Federal agencies, State Historic Preservation Officers (SHPO's) and the
National Register staff to un-evaluated properties that may be affected by
Federal agency actions to determine whether they are eligible for
consideration during agency planning. Local historic preservation
commissions and chief elected officials in Certified Local Governments use
them in commenting on nominations to the Register, and many local
governments have used them as the basis for their own evaluation systems.
Criterion A: A property may be registered if it is associated with events
that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our
history.
Criterion B: A property may be registered if it is associated with the
lives of persons significant in our past.
Criterion C: This is a complex criterion with several subparts:
- The first subpart provides that a property may be registered if it
embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of
construction.
- The second subpart provides that a property may be registered if it
represents the work of a master.
- The third subpart provides that a property may be registered if it
possesses high artistic values.
- The final subpart provides that a property may be registered if it
represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may
lack individual distinction.
Criterion D: A property may be registered if it has yielded, or may be
likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.
The Criteria Considerations are partial exceptions to, or limitations on,
the eligibility of properties for the Register.
Criteria Consideration A provides that a religious property is not
eligible for the National Register unless it derives primary significance
from architectural or artistic distinction or historical importance.
Criteria Consideration B provides that a building or structure removed
from its original location is not eligible for the National Register unless
it is significant primarily for its architectural value or it is the
surviving structure most importantly associated with a historic person or
event.
Criteria Consideration C provides that a birthplace or grave is not
eligible for the national Register, unless it is that of a historical
figure of outstanding importance and there is no other appropriate site or
building directly associated with his or her productive life.
Criteria Consideration D provides that cemeteries are not eligible for the
National Register, unless they derive their primary significance from
persons of transcendent importance, from age, from distinctive design
features, or from association with historic events.
Criteria Consideration E provides that a reconstructed building is not
eligible for the Register, except under certain exceptional circumstances.
A reconstructed building can be registered if the reconstruction is
historically accurate, if the building is presented in a dignified manner
as part of a restoration master plan, and if no other, original building or
structure survives that has the same association.
Criteria Consideration F provides that properties that are primarily
commemorative in intent cannot be registered, unless design, age,
tradition, or symbolic value invest such properties with their own
historical significance.
Criteria Consideration G forbids the registration of properties achieving significance
within the past 50 years unless such properties are of exceptional importance.
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Q: What kinds of properties can be included in the Register?
A: The National Register includes buildings and structures such as houses,
commercial buildings and bridges. It also includes sites such as
battlefields, parks, and archaeological sites. It includes
districts--groups of buildings, structures or sites that make up a coherent
whole, such as a neighborhood or an industrial complex. Finally, it
includes objects---not portable museum objects, but large movable
properties such as fountains and monuments.
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Q: What kinds of significance must properties have in order to be registered?
A: Properties important in history, prehistory, architectural history,
engineering history, archeology, or culture may be entered in the National
Register. In other words, a property associated with the history of a
community may be listed, and so can a prehistoric archaeological site, an
example of a type of architecture, landscape architecture, or an
engineering process, or a place of continuing but traditional cultural
importance to a community (e.g., a place associated with an American
Indian tradition or a well-preserved rural landscape.)
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Q: What level of significance must a property have in order to be registered?
A: The Register includes properties determined to have significance at the
national, state, and local levels. In other words, although the Register
is "National," it is designed to include properties of importance to the
people of the nation where they live, in their communities, not just great
national landmarks. A general store, your community's park, its
mainstreet, or its Indian mound, may be just as eligible for inclusion in
the National Register as Independence Hall or Gettysburg Battlefield.
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Q: What is a historic properties survey?
A: A historic properties survey is a study designed to identify and evaluate
properties in an area--a community, a neighborhood, a rural area, the area
of a proposed land-use project--to determine whether they may be of
historic, architectural, archaeological, engineering or cultural
significance.
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Q: What do you mean by "historic properties?"
A: The national historic preservation program deals with the full range of
properties significant in American history, prehistory, architecture,
engineering, archeology, and culture, including properties significant to
the whole nation, those significant to a particular State or region, and
those significant at the local level. "Historic property" is the shorthand
term for all these kinds of properties.
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Q: Why do a survey?
A: Perhaps the foremost reason--as will be discussed below-- is to know where
historic properties are so that their protection and improvement can be
considered in planning new projects and use of the land. A second reason
is to increase public understanding of, and interest in, an area's history
and historic properties, through publication or other use of the
information in the survey itself. A third reason is to identify properties
whose owners may be eligible for various kinds of Federal, State, and local
assistance if they want to restore, preserve, or rehabilitate them. A
fourth reason is to provide a data base for research in history or
prehistory.
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Q: What information does a survey produce?
A: The survey will produce written reports, files or photographs, perhaps
videotapes or audio tapes, maps showing areas surveyed at different levels
of intensity, drawings, plans, and bibliographic information on background
data. Based on these data, and an evaluation of the properties recorded,
an organized inventory can be produced listing properties that have been
evaluated and found to be historic, together with a list of properties
found not to be historic.
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If you have further questions, email us at info@arkansaspreservation.org.