HIGHLIGHTS OF 2006 SAVE AMERICA’S
TREASURES AWARDS

OVERVIEW
• Save America’s Treasures received 327 applications in 2006, and after careful evaluation, 23 historic properties and sites and 19 projects focused on collections, artifacts, and artistic works, were awarded a total of $7.6 million. In 2005, $14.89 million was awarded to 62 groups in competitive grants.

• An additional 89 2006 SAT congressional earmarks were also awarded in October 2005, totaling $16.9 million.

• These 42 awards bring the total of competitive grants awarded since FY 1999 to 473. No other federal program has the responsibility of preserving, conserving and rescuing our nation’s most significant cultural and heritage resources. To date, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Midway Island have received grants.

2006 Project Highlights
This year’s awards:

A) Cover a diverse range of subject matter and American themes

• Colonial History
While his farm in Concord, Massachusetts was being searched for arms by British troops, Colonel James Barrett had assembled the militia who would fire the shots that ignited the American Revolution. Preservation of his home, which remains relatively unchanged, provides a living link to the American Revolution.

• Civil Rights Movement
Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was a focal point for African-American life in the South, serving as a lecture hall, gathering place and headquarters for the Civil Rights rallies and meetings. In 1963, a bomb exploded during Sunday school killing four young girls—forever linking this tragic event and the church as a symbol of the struggle for civil rights.

• Maritime History
Maryland’s skipjacks, sleek sailing ships that harvested oysters in the Chesapeake Bay, helped drive America’s prosperity in the 19th and 20th centuries. Today only a few of these boats exist. The Nellie Byrd will be restored to serve as working boat, teaching the next generation about the contribution of these ships to the growth of our nation.

B) Serve as keystones for scholars and future historians to tell our nation’s story
.
• Nebraska State Historical Society Native American Collection touches on almost the whole history of the Plains Indians Tribes from before contact with Europeans to the present day. It provides an irreplaceable understanding of the cultural life of these people.

• Hearst Metrotone Newsreel Collection represents a priceless public archive that highlights the broad patterns of 20th-century U.S. history through the eyes of journalists reporting on American and world history, scientific and medical breakthroughs, popular culture and hundreds of other stories.

C) Represent a wide range of American communities

• Sheridan Inn in Sheridan, Wyoming, was developed by Buffalo Bill Cody with the railroad company and served both hunters and authors who were the seeking the Wild West.

• Farnsworth House on the outskirts of Chicago was designed by Mies van der Rohe and is considered one of the country’s premier architectural treasures.

• National Bank Building, Galveston, Texas, is one of the pillars of the city’s National Historic Landmark District, which encompasses examples of 19th- and early 20th-century architecture.

D) Contribute to the preservation of American culture, identity and heritage

• Alcatraz Island Garden was created by those who lived on the island during its military and prison eras. Sustaining this unique cultural landscape, its history, horticulture and cultural significance, is a critical piece of this National Historic Landmark’s interpretation for visitors.

• World Trade Center 9/11 Collection includes more than several hundred thousand artifacts, ranging from the legacy of thoughts and memorials to the fragments of buildings, vehicles and other pieces from the site, all of them framing a defining moment in modern American history.

• Gettysburg Cyclorama is one of the last surviving examples of its type and depicts Pickett’s Charge the climatic clash of this epic battle. It is 359 feet long, 27 feet high and weighs an estimated 3 tons and presents a host of challenges to conservators in the restoration of this fragile 19th-century work.