President’s Day Celebrated in America’s National Parks and through Online Historic Preservation Programs
OutdoorHub 02.14.13
With information and the actual homes, monuments and memorials of more than 30 presidents, the National Park Service is the place to go to burnish your President’s Day IQ.
“Besides in-person visits, you can explore America’s presidents through the collections of the Historic American Buildings Survey,” said National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis. “The documentation of these sites – their birthplaces, boyhood homes, private residences and even the White House – provide a fascinating look into the homes and serve as an invaluable key to the preservation and long-term care of these landmarks.”
A special website at http://www.nps.gov/findapark/president-habs.htm provides links to presidential park sites and Historic American Buildings Survey studies for the homes of, and monuments and memorials to, more than 30 presidents.
Started in 1933 as a New Deal program to provide much-needed work for architects, photographers, and historians, the Historic American Buildings Survey has recorded America’s built environment in multi-format surveys comprised of more than half a million measured drawings, large-format photographs, and written histories. Among the more than 38,600 historic structures and sites documented in the collection (which are produced by the National Park Service and digitized for display by the Library of Congress) are the birthplaces, homes, monuments and memorials to more than 30 of our nation’s presidents, from the Washington Monument to Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello to Lyndon Johnson’s Texas ranch.
To learn more about the men who have served America as president and about the National Park Service, and to gain a better understanding of our nation’s past, present and future, visit the Presidential Homes and the Historic American Buildings Survey website.
