Historic Preservation > Historic Preservation in the U.S. > Timeline
- 1816 – Philadelphia citizens save the Old State House (now Independence Hall) from demolition
- 1853-1856 – Through efforts of Ann Pamela Cunningham and others, the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union forms to save George and Martha Washington’s home
- 1872 – The United States Federal Government designates Yellowstone National Park a federally protected area
- 1889 – U.S. Congress appropriates $2000 for the preservation of Casa Grande in Arizona
- 1890 – U.S. Congress passes legislation authorizing the preservation of American battlefields, Chickamauga Battlefield in Georgia and the Chattanooga Battlefield in Tennessee
- 1896 – The U.S. Supreme Court upholds U.S. vs Gettysburg Railway Company, allowing the condemnation of private property for the creation of a national memorial
- 1906 – U.S. Congress passes the Antiquities Act, the country’s first federal preservation legislation. The Act allows the designation of monuments on federal land and protects federally owned sites from demolition. Mesa Verde National Park established
- 1910 – Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (now Historic New England) forms
- 1916 – National Park Service is established and housed within the U.S. Department of the Interior
- 1925 – The Vieux Carre Commission, the first historic preservation commission in the United States, is formed to protect New Orleans’ French Quarter, though it does not receive its full powers until the 1936 Louisiana State Constitution is passed
- 1926 – Henry Ford begins collecting historic buildings and objects at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. John D. Rockefeller Jr. begins funding the reconstruction and restoration of Williamsburg, Virginia
- 1931 – Charleston, South Carolina, creates the first locally designated historic district, named the “Old and Historic District”
- 1934 – President Franklin Roosevelt authorizes the formation of the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS)
- 1935 – U.S. Congress passes the Historic Sites Act to construct preservation policy and creates the National Historic Landmarks program
- 1949 – The National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) forms
- 1966 – U.S. Congress passes the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), which creates the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), the Advisory Council of Historic Preservation (ACHP), and State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPO)
- 1969 – Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) is established
- 1976 – Tax Reform Act encourages preservation and rehabilitation of older and historic structures with the creation of the Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit for commercial properties, and the Historic Preservation Tax Incentive, or historic preservation easements, for historic-home residents and owners
- 1978 – U.S. Supreme Court upholds the decision in Penn Central Transportation Co. vs. City of New York, thus ruling in favor of New York City’s local preservation law and denying the City a permit to demolish Grand Central Terminal. U.S. Congress passes Revenue Act, establishing tax credits for the rehabilitation of historic structures.
- 1980 – NTHP creates the Main Street Program. NHPA is amended to include the provision for the designation of Certified Local Government (CLG) status
- 1981 – Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA) encourages historic building rehabilitation with a 25% tax incentive
- 1986 – Department of the Treasury authorizes final regulations through which the historic preservation easement donations would be allowable as charitable deductions
- 1988 – Federal Abandoned Shipwrecks Act encourages maritime preservation and establishes state management of significant shipwrecks
- 1990 – U.S. Congress passes the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)
- 1992 – NHPA is amended to encourage the creation of Tribal Historic Preservation Offices (THPO)
- 1998 – NTHP becomes independent from federal funding
- 2000 – Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS) is established
- 2006 – U.S. Congress passes legislation that provides new incentives and safeguards for the Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentive Program (easements)
- 2008 – The Christman Company Building in Lansing, Michigan, becomes the first building in the U.S. to earn a double-platinum rating from the United States Green Building Council (USGBC)’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System, a program first introduced in 1998
- 2009 – LEED 2009 and LEED-Neighborhood Development, to be introduced in 2009, incorporate new metrics that encourage the rehabilitation of existing structures