NCPTT’s Historic Landscapes Program encourages research and partnerships to improve the technologies available to practitioners as they undertake the complex tasks of documenting, preserving, and interpreting the historic landscapes significant to a wide variety of people and cultures.
Debbie Smith recently joined NCPTT as the new Chief of the Historic Landscapes Program. She came to NCPTT from the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation where she worked for the past seven years as a historical landscape architect. Prior to OCLP, she taught in the Environmental, Design and Buildings Technology Department at Lansing Community College in Lansing, Mich.; worked as a cultural landscape consultant for Carlisle/Wortman Associates in Ann Arbor, Mich.; and served as an intern with the Michigan State Preservation Office in Lansing, Michigan. Debbie received her Masters of Landscape Architecture degree from the University of Michigan in 1999.
Prototype Electronic Maintenance Management System for Historic Sites
The Historic Landscapes Program and the Materials Research Program are working together to define an electronic maintenance management system that will address a wide-range of landscape features, including cemetery monuments markers. An outline of data base fields and subfields has been created for vegetation, monuments and markers. Work will be further defined and expanded upon in fiscal year 2008.
Front Street Rehabilitation Project: Crosswalks and Curb Cuts
Debbie Smith and Andy Ferrell met with
Natchitoches Mayor Wayne McCullen and others
to discuss the accessibility of a proposed project to
rehabilitate Front Street, the primary commercial
road within the Nachitoches National Historic
Landmark District. Issues discussed included the
planned locations of crosswalks and ramped curb cuts,
and the appropriateness of the design within the
historic district.
Historic Landscape Web Resources
With the assistance of Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts (LSMSA) student Blakey Lawhon, the Historic Landscape Program is assembling a bibliography of web resources related to the preservation of historic landscapes. The bibliography, which will include journal articles and NPS publications, will be added to the NCPTT web site. The bibliography will include links to the online resources.
Lee Nelson Hall Landscape Plan: Installation Documentation
Debbie Smith documented installation of the irrigation system and new plantings associated with the Lee Nelson Hall Landscape Plan. Using repeat photography, Smith was able to record the landscape prior to ground breaking, during installation, and after completion.
Gum Springs Picnic Area
Debbie Smith met with Velicia Berstrom and Lee
Stewart, Heritage Resource Program staff at the
Kitsatchie National Forest to discuss HALS
documentation of the National Register eligible
Gum Springs Picnic Area, constructed by the CCC
between 1937 and 1940. Site Documentation is
one of several mitigation measures required by the
Louisiana SHPO in response to an adverse effect
caused when a contractor breached an earthen dam
associated with a .5 acre CCC-built naturalized
swimming pool.
As a result of the site visit and later
conversations with the director of the HALS program
and staff at the Louisiana SHPO, Smith advised the
Forest Service staff to complete draft HABS/HAER
Documentation begun in the 1990s, instead of initiating
HALS documentation, with the understanding that
landscape features typically recorded in HALS will
be included in the documentation. The Historic
Landscape Program will assist the Forest Service
staff to identify these landscape features.