Last updated: June 20, 2018
Article
2017 National Historic Landmark Designations
Road towards the effigy mound and ‘Man Mound Ridge’ (background).
Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Historical Society, WHi-77565.
Man Mound:
Sauk County, Wisconsin
Man Mound in Sauk County, WI, is the only surviving earthen anthropomorphic mound in North America. It is a fine example of Late Woodland (ca. AD 700–1200) bas-relief earthen effigy mound construction. The mound, which most likely depicts a shaman or a Lower World human/spirit, communicates the cultural and aesthetic values of its designers, exhibiting an unusual degree of anatomical detail in comparison to other effigy mounds.
Indiana Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology
The Athenaeum:
Indianapolis, Indiana
The Athenaeum in Indianapolis, IN, was the home of the Normal College of the North American Gymnastic Union for sixty-three years. The Normal College, now the Indiana University School of Physical Education, is the nation’s oldest continuously active school of physical education. The building is a rare example of a monumental Turner hall and an excellent example of German Renaissance Revival Style architecture.
Photo courtesy of Rochelle S. Elstein
The Home of Edsel and Eleanor Ford
The Home of Edsel and Eleanor Ford, Gaukler Pointe, in Grosse Pointe Shores and St. Clair Shores, MI, is an outstanding and well-preserved example of the Country Place Era in American Landscape Design. It is a leading example of the mature work of landscape architect Jens Jensen, a foremost proponent and practitioner of the Prairie Style of landscape design.
National Park Service
The Biesterfeldt Site
The Biesterfeldt Site is a post-contact fortified village site of the northeastern Great Plains, in what is now the southeast quarter of North Dakota. Occupied by Native Americans ca. 1726-1790, the archeological site contains clear evidence of about sixty earthlodge dwellings distributed about a central plaza. It is the only known earthlodge village site believed to be associated with the Cheyenne.
Photo courtesy of Brendan Kearns
The West Union Covered Bridge
The West Union Covered Bridge is north-northeast of Montezuma, IN. The two-span Burr Arch Truss covered bridge structure was built by Joseph J. Daniels in 1876. It is the longest standing covered bridge in Parke County and one of the nation’s best-preserved examples of the Burr truss.
National Park Service
The Wyandotte National Burying Ground
The Wyandotte National Burying Ground is located in what is now downtown Kansas City, KS. The first burials took place there in 1843 shortly after the removal of the Wyandot from Ohio under the Indian Removal Act of 1830 to the “Indian Territory” west of the Missouri River. Among those whose remains lie there is Eliza (Lyda) Burton Conley, the first American Indian (Wyandot) to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
National Park Service
Omaha Union Station
Omaha Union Station is one of the most unique and complete examples of Art Deco architecture in the nation. It is one of a select few buildings in a subgenre of the Art Deco style that incorporates distinctive elements of ancient Egyptian construction within its overall design concept. Designed and built in the late 1920s, it was one of the earliest Art Deco train stations and the first by the Union Pacific (UP) Railroad.
Photo courtesy of Jeff Winstel, National Park Service.
Zoar Historic District
Zoar Historic District in Tuscarawas County, OH, is the site of a successful Utopian communal society founded by German religious dissenters, where all shared equally. Zoar’s architecture and cultural landscape illustrate its German heritage and convey its evolution from founding in 1817 to dissolution in 1898. Zoar provides insight into 19th-century religious and secular communal societies’ varying attitudes toward the roles of women.
Photo courtesy of Mark Seeman, National Park Service.
Kent State Shootings Site
The May 4, 1970, Kent State Shootings Site is the location of student protest against the Vietnam War that ended in tragedy when the Ohio National Guard shot and killed four Kent State University students and wounded nine. The significance of this event is best understood within the context of larger, national student protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s. The site has achieved symbolic status from the use of unreasonable, deadly force by the U.S. government.
Photo courtesy of Lola Bennett
The Eldean Bridge
The Eldean Bridge in Miami County, Ohio, is an excellent example of 19th-century covered bridge construction. Erected in 1860, its span is a rare surviving Long truss, a highly significant timber truss type that introduced the concept of prestressing to American bridge design. The Eldean Bridge is the most structurally intact of less than a dozen surviving Long truss covered bridges in the U.S.
National Park Service
Kimball Village Site
Kimball Village Site, north of Sioux City, Iowa, contains an exceptionally well-preserved Native American settlement belonging to the Big Sioux phase of the Middle Missouri Tradition early in the period CE 1100-1250. Archeological deposits contain remnants of as many as twenty-four houses, storage pits, hearths, a defensive palisade and ditch, dense stratigraphic layers, and a large, rich artifact assemblage.
Photo courtesy of Beth Sullebarger, National Park Service.
Greenhills Historic District
Greenhills Historic District in Greenhills, Ohio, is one of three U.S. government-sponsored, planned communities designed and built as a reflection of American garden-city principles during the Great Depression era. A legacy of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal policies, Greenhills represents creative innovations in house and neighborhood design during an important period in the evolution of the American suburb.Originally published in "Exceptional Places" Vol. 12, 2017, a newsletter of the Division of Cultural Resources, Midwest Region. Written by National Park Service Staff.