Archive for the ‘National Historic Landmark Fun’ Category
The Wren’s Nest — National Historic Landmark, Fierce Competitor
The calendar next to my desk is the National Historic Landmarks Photo Contest calendar. Surprise to no one, I love it.
It doesn’t really mess around with things like “non-American” holidays or fancy words like “solstice” (June 21st: “Summer Begins”). What it does make room for, however, is the following, marked on August 21st: “National Historic Landmarks Program Established on this Day in 1935.” I like your priorities, my calendar.
(The Wren’s Nest, positively glowing about its NHL status.)
The Wren’s Nest is, of course, a National Historic Landmark. In case you’re wondering what that means, exactly, it’s this: that we’re awesome, and way more awesome than most other old things.
The numbers do the talking for us:
- There are over 1,000,000 sites on the National Register of Historic Places. Not too choosy, but nice, still.
- 80,000 of those bad boys are listed individually. (The rest are accounted for by things like historic districts and the contributing properties therein. Nice try, guys.)
- Out of the 80,000 sites on the National Register of Historic Places, only 2,430 are National Historic Landmarks like the Wren’s Nest. Yikes.
- This is definitive proof that we’re super special.
Obviously, inclusion in this calendar of similarly special old places would be terrific. Wanna help? Take a moment to look at the Wren’s Nest’s interior and exterior photos and vote on which one you think we should submit to the contest. If we win, we’ll totally share the proceeds ($0) with you!
Happy scrutinizing!
Related: This list of National Historic Landmarks by state is neat. (There are 48 NHLs in Georgia, in case you were interested.) So is National Historic Landmark Flickr account. And! This weekend (August 14th and 15th) is one of the monthly fee-free entrance weekends at more than 100 national parks. America, good work.