05/01/2024

This Year's List of the Most Endangered Historic U.S. Places

The National Trust for Historic Preservation releases the list annually

There's a lonely old church in the mountains of West Virginia that holds a hidden history. Black coal miners in a segregated camp worshipped there starting in the 1920s. Now, the New Salem Baptist Church is listed as one of America's 11 most endangered historic sites.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has released a list highlighting such places every year since 1988. Carol Quillen is the organization's new president and CEO. Trained as a historian, she was the first female president of Davidson College in North Carolina.

"I studied the past largely through texts, not places," Quillen said to NPR. "And the difference between imagining one's relationship to the past through experiencing a place and reading a book in a library is really profound. So, I love the way these places, which themselves hold layers and layers of stories, and invite us in the present to connect our stories to the ones these places hold."

Please select this link to read the complete article from NPR.