Massachusetts State Historic Preservation Plan 2006-2010

Skelly, Christopher

From the Introduction: "As the State Historic Preservation Office, the Massachusetts Historical Commission plays the central role in guiding the Commonwealth's historic preservation agenda. As the primary user of the Massachusetts State Historic Preservation Plan, the MHC is responsible for assuring that its programs and activities further the broad goals, objectives, and priorities outline in this plan. However, it should be noted that the Massachusetts State Historic Preservation Plan is not used solely by the Massachusetts Commission. Rather, this document serves as a guide to many other organizations such as federal agencies, state agencies, non-profit organizations as well as other preservation partners including local and regional governments of Massachusetts. In preparing this plan, we hope it will provide all of us with a clear direction in how best to protect the irreplaceable historic and cultural resources of Massachusetts. Massachusetts has a rich history represented in its historic and cultural resources, which includes buildings, structures, objectives, areas, burial grounds, landscapes, and archaeological sites. These cultural resources are a valuable material record of the history of the Commonwealth and significantly enhance the quality of life in the state. Historic resources bring residents and visitors an experience of place, a sense of time, and a connection to the past. They enhance the scenic qualities of our landscape, establish community character and identity, and in large part define what is unique about Massachusetts. The continuing presence of historic resources is a principal reason people choose to live, visit, and do business in Massachusetts. For over 10,000 years people have shaped and modified the land creating the Commonwealth's collective historic and cultural landscape. The evidence of this long history of human activity is apparently everywhere. The state's history is found in cultural resources as diverse as archaeological sites associated with the region's earlier Native inhabitants, farmsteads in the Connecticut River Valley, fishing ports in New Bedford and Cape Anne, Federal houses that line the streets of Salem and Newburyport, and mills and factories in Lowell and Holyoke. The Massachusetts landscape itself is a cultural resource represented in the designed grounds of a country estate in the Berkshires, the manicured green of a town common, a hilltop orchard in Worchester County, or a Cape Code cranberry bog. This vast array of resources is an important illustration of the state's cultural heritage and provides a better understanding of our past, be it that of prehistoric cultures represented in an archaeological site, or of nineteenth-century engineering in a railroad bridge. The historic properties and sites that comprise the cultural landscape in Massachusetts are both finite and non-renewable. Once destroyed, they are lost forever. Their continued productive use, appreciation, and value is inextricably linked to the need to preserve and protect them. Massachusetts has long recognized the importance of preserving this heritage and has a well-established framework that incorporates historic preservation into the state's overall planning. As the state's historic preservation office, the Massachusetts Historical Commission has developed the State Plan to help guide the state's historic preservation efforts." Project funding is provided in part by a Historic Preservation Fund grant to the Massachusetts Historical Commission administered by the State, Tribal, Local Plans and Grants division, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.

Massachusetts State Historic Preservation Plan 2006-2010

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