Multiple Property Submission and Individual Nominations to the National Register of Historic Places for Second Generation National Veterans Hospitals and Historic Resource Study on NCA Confederate Cemeteries and Related Sites
Project Description: CRA’s team of architectural historians is experienced in assisting federal agencies to meet their historic preservation obligations outlined in Section 110 of the National Historic Preservation Act. Currently, we are engaged in two multi-year projects for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) that involve documenting, evaluating, and nominating VA-owned properties that are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.
The first of these projects is a study of forty-five Second Generation National Veterans Hospitals built 1918-1940 for returning World War I veterans. For this project, CRA staff began by conducting research in local repositories, the National Archives and Records Administration, and the United States Veterans Affairs central office to develop a historic context for evaluating these medical facilities. During the first year of the project, fifteen medical centers were surveyed to fully document their current conditions and perform historical research to develop a written history of each individual medical center. Visits to the remaining thirty medical centers will occur in years two and three of the contract. The research and surveys will result in a Multiple Property Submission to the National Register of Historic Places including a Multiple Property Documentation Form and approximately forty-two individual National Register nominations. In writing these documents, CRA is particularly focused on developing a historic context that clearly articulates the national significance of Second Generation Veterans Hospitals and establishes precise registration requirements for evaluating these properties. To date, the Multiple Property Documentation Form and thirteen individual nominations have been submitted to the VA for review and comment.
The second VA project is a historic resource study of National Cemetery Administration (NCA)-owned burial sites that contain the remains of Confederate dead. Teaming with Mudpuppy & Waterdog, Inc., experts in public history and Civil War history, and landscape architect Ned Crankshaw, ASLA, CRA is investigating the history of nine Confederate cemeteries and ten National Cemeteries with large numbers of Confederate interments. Several of these sites served as burial grounds for Union prisons in the North, and most have a large memorial commemorating the Confederate dead with or without individual grave markers. Despite the relative small size of some of these sites, they have been the backdrop for controversy about display of the Confederate flag, installing/expanding memorials and re-interring Confederate remains. Thus, the project team is charged with documenting these sites and developing a historic context in which to evaluate them in order to facilitate the development of sound cultural resource management policy and consistent management practices. The study will result in several products, including: 1) an analytic historic overview of all relevant Confederate burial issues and comprehensive written histories of the individual sites; 2) recommendations for cultural resource management appropriate to each site, and 3) proposed textual/illustrative content and design for interpretive signage to be placed at the sites. The histories and current conditions of the individual cemetery sites will be documented in Historic American Landscape Survey (HALS) historical reports and National Register of Historic Places amendments or nominations.
