Title:  Alabama State Historic Preservation Plan

Number of Pages:  31+
Approval Date:  January 16, 2003
Planning Cycle:  5 years

Contact Information:

Mary Mason Shell
Alabama Historical Commission
468 South Perry Street
Montgomery, AL 36130-0900
(334) 242-3184; fax (334) 240-3477
E-mail: Mshell@mail.preserveala.org Web: www.preserveala.org/divisions/planningservices/statepres.htm

Mission/Vision Statement:
The mission of the Alabama Historical Commission is to protect, preserve and interpret Alabama's historic places.

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Plan Development
   Public Participation
3. History of the National Historic Preservation Movement
4. History of Alabama's Historic Preservation Movement
5. Historic Preservation in Alabama State Government
6. Historic Preservation and the Socio-Economic Climate
7. The Future of Preservation
   Goals and Objectives
8. Cultural Resources Assessment
9. Preservation Methods and Programs
10. Bibliography
11. Appendix
    1. Organizational Chart
    2. AHC Program Fact Sheets

PLAN DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES
Public Participation Strategies:

• Public views on previous Plan and preservation issues solicited at regularly scheduled, regional and statewide meetings during the Plan's planning cycle, with comment sheets completed by meeting participants;
• Series of public meetings for target constituency groups, such as Main Street boards, CLG staff and commissions, Black Heritage Council, Alabama Preservation Alliance, local historical societies, local house museum boards, and local preservationists.

• Professional facilitator assisted AHC staff in identifying current issues and present and future needs of the office and state preservation community.

HISTORIC AND CULTURAL RESOURCES
Categories of cultural resources: Historic Buildings include houses, such as residential districts, apartment complexes, mill housing, public housing, tenant houses, 20th century bungalows; commercial buildings, such as "cross roads" stores, multi-story office buildings; industrial buildings, such as grist and saw mills, cotton and textile mills, coal and iron factories, nitrate and early power facilities; agriculture buildings, such as farm and plantation houses, agricultural complexes; community buildings, such as schools, city halls, courthouses, churches, civic halls, jails, libraries, post offices, armories. Historic structures include structures, such as wells, windmills, corncribs, lighthouses, water towers, agricultural outbuildings, roads, fortifications, dams, ships, mines, quarries, processing plants; structured environments, such as city plans in urban areas, courthouse squares in small towns, agricultural field patterns, cemeteries, garden and yard arrangements, suburban curvilinear street systems; historic vessels and shipwrecks. Historic sites include archaeological sites of the prehistoric, proto-historic, and historic periods, such as early prehistoric settlements, colonial exploration sites, French colonial sites in Mobile and Fort Toulouse, Alabama's first capitol at Cahawba; Selma to Montgomery Civil Rights March overnight camp sites; historic, cultural, rural, urban, vernacular, and designed landscapes; municipal and family cemeteries. Historic districts include industrial mill complexes, communities, educational complexes, parks, farms, military installations, rural settlements, and prehistoric communities.

ISSUES, THREATS, & OPPORTUNITIES

• Continuing growth and development around and between major cities and coastal areas is the most apparent threat creates challenges to accommodate development while protecting important cultural resources;
• Blackbelt region in central Alabama is threatened by neglect, changes in crop technologies, and farm lifestyles;
• Your Town Alabama, Main Street, Certified Local Government, Rehabilitation Tax Credit, and grant programs help promote stability, development, and preservation;
• City and town centers are threatened by strip commercial development and urban sprawl;
• Conflicts between economic development and cultural resource preservation;
• Timbering and paper manufacturing technologies expand the use of forests, threatening historic buildings, structures, historic landscapes, and archaeological sites;
• Conversion of historic agricultural fields to tree farms changes historic rural landscape and disassociates historic structures from their original landscape;
• Intensive forest management in national forests requires Section 106 review by SHPO, but this review is not required for state and private lands;
• Corporate farming has led to the demise of many historic farmsteads through neglect, conversion to modern agribusiness, tree farm conversion, and new development;
• Rural lands adjacent to growing urban areas are threatened by encroaching housing developments, industrial parks, commercial centers, and roadways;
• Few county commissions do not have planning or zoning authority or functions, which could help preserve rural cultural resources;
• Counties are increasingly adopting authority to regulate land subdivisions;
• Industrial sites associated with iron and coal mining and manufacture have been abandoned;
• Ongoing mining activities endanger historic sites;
• Maritime economy, waterway dredging, and water diversion projects threatens coastal and underwater cultural resources, such as archaeological sites, sunken vessels, lighthouses, dams, bridges;
• Transportation projects threaten historic resources, but opportunities for preservation exist through the Section 106 review process;
• Heritage tourism industry offers opportunities to preserve local landmarks and to educate a wide segment of the public;
• Challenge is to reconcile the need for economic advantage with its effects on cultural resources.

1. Identify historic and prehistoric places and associated objects of significance to Alabama and United States.
2. Protect, preserve, restore and maintain historic and prehistoric places and associated objects of significance to Alabama and United States history.
3. Promote public awareness of historic preservation principles and practices.
4. Educate, interpret, and promote Alabama and United States history utilizing historic and prehistoric places and associated objects as the primary illustrations.

IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGIES
Strategies Implementing the Goals