National Historic Landmark District

Is Galena a good candidate?

The Galena Foundation is working to get Galena's Historic District listed as a National Historic Landmark District (NHLD). NHLD status is governed by the National Park Service. Below are FAQs taken from the National Park Service (nps.gov).

What are National Historic Landmarks?

National Historic Landmarks are buildings, sites, districts, structures, and objects that have been determined by the Secretary of the Interior to be nationally significant in American history and culture. Many of the most renowned historic properties in the nation are Landmarks. Mount Vernon, Pearl Harbor, the Apollo Mission Control Center, Alcatraz, and Martin Luther King's Birthplace are Landmarks that illustrate important contributions to the nation's historical development.

How are National Historic Landmarks selected?

Potential Landmarks may be identified through theme studies or special studies undertaken by the National Park Service; these studies provide a comparative analysis of properties associated with a specific area of American history, such as Labor or Women's History. The historic importance of these potential Landmarks is evaluated by the National Park Service and the National Park System Advisory Board twice yearly at meetings that are open to the public. The Advisory Board includes citizens who are national and community leaders in the conservation of natural, historic, and cultural areas. The Advisory Board makes recommendations to the Secretary of the Interior regarding potential National Historic Landmarks. Final decisions regarding National Historic Landmark designation are made by the Secretary of the Interior. In most cases, designation by the Secretary occurs six to eight weeks following the Advisory Board's recommendation. Designation may be delayed if questions regarding the significance, physical condition, or boundaries of a potential Landmark are raised by the Advisory Board or the Secretary of the Interior. Nominations prepared by other Federal agencies, State Historic Preservation Officers, and individuals are accepted for review and represent an increasing number of nominations reviewed each year.

What criteria are used to select National Historic Landmarks?

National Historic Landmarks may be districts, sites, buildings, structures, or objects. All Landmarks are nationally significant. Each Landmark demonstrates exceptional value or quality in illustrating or interpreting the heritage of the United States in history, architecture, archeology, technology, and culture. National Historic Landmarks possess a high degree of integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association, and meet one or more of the following criteria:

That is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to, and are identified with, or that outstandingly represents, the broad national patterns of United States history and from which an understanding and appreciation of those patterns may be gained; or
That are associated importantly with the lives of persons nationally significant in the history of the United States; or
That represent some great idea or ideal of the American people; or
That embody the distinguishing characteristics of an architectural type specimen exceptionally valuable for the study of a period, style or method of construction, or that represent a significant, distinctive and exceptional entity whose components may lack individual distinction; or
That are composed of integral parts of the environment not sufficiently significant by reason of historical association or artistic merit to warrant individual recognition but collectively compose an entity of exceptional historical or artistic significance, or outstandingly commemorate or illustrate a way of life or culture; or
That have yielded or may be likely to yield information of major scientific importance by revealing new cultures, or by shedding light upon periods of occupation over large areas of the United States. Such sites are those which have yielded, or which may reasonably be expected to yield, data affecting theories, concepts, and ideas to a major degree.

Ordinarily, cemeteries, birthplaces, graves of historical figures, properties owned by religious institutions or used for religious purposes, structures that have been moved from their original locations, reconstructed historic buildings, and properties that have achieved significance within the past 50 years are not eligible for designation. Such properties, however, may qualify if they fall within the following categories:

A religious property deriving its primary national significance from architectural or artistic distinction or historical importance; or
A building or structure removed from its original location but which is nationally significant primarily for its architectural merit, or for association with persons or events of transcendent importance in the nation's history and the consequential association; or
A site of a building or structure no longer standing but the person or event associated with it is of transcendent importance in the nation's history and the consequential association; or
A birthplace, grave, or burial if it is of a historical figure of transcendent national significance and no other appropriate site, building or structure directly associated with the productive life of that person exists; or
A cemetery that derives its primary national significance from graves of persons of transcendent importance, or from an exceptionally distinctive design or from an exceptionally significant event; or
A reconstructed building or ensemble of buildings of extraordinary national significance when accurately executed in a suitable environment and presented in a dignified manner as part of a restoration master plan, and when no other buildings or structures with the same association have survived; or
A property primarily commemorative in intent if design, age, tradition, or symbolic value has invested it with its own national historical significance; or
A property achieving national significance within the past 50 years if it is of extraordinary national importance.

How are National Historic Landmarks different than other historic properties
listed on the National Register of Historic Places?

Landmarks have been recognized by the Secretary of the Interior as possessing national significance. Nationally significant properties help us understand the history of the nation and illustrate the nationwide impact of events or persons associated with the property, its architectural type or style, or information potential. A nationally significant property is of exceptional value in representing or illustrating an important theme in the history of the nation. Properties listed in the National Register are primarily of state and local significance. With a state or locally significant property, its impact is restricted to a smaller geographic area. For example, many historic schools are listed in the National Register because of the historically important role they played in educating individuals in the community or state in which they are located. Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, is nationally significant because it was the site of the first major confrontation over implementation of the Supreme Court's 1954 decision outlawing racial segregation in public schools. The city's resistance led to President Eisenhower's decision to send Federal troops to enforce desegregation at this school in 1957.

All National Historic Landmarks are included in the National Register of Historic Places, which is the official list of the nation's historic properties worthy of preservation. Landmarks constitute more than 2,500 of more than 90,000 entries in the National Register; the others are of state and local significance. The process for listing a property in the National Register is different from that for Landmark designation with different criteria and procedures used. Some properties are recommended as nationally significant when they are nominated to the National Register, but before they can be designated as National Historic Landmarks, they must be evaluated by the National Park Service's National Historic Landmark Survey, reviewed by the National Park System Advisory Board, and recommended to the Secretary of the Interior. Some properties listed in the National Register are subsequently identified by the Survey as nationally significant; others are identified through theme studies or special studies. Both the National Historic Landmark and the National Register Programs are administered by the National Park Service under the Secretary of the Interior.

Learn More at NPS.gov