Bellingham
Historic Resource Survey
Historic Preservation Northwest was selected by the City of Bellingham
to perform their Preserve America
grant work for 2008-2009. The grant is for historic preservation work in the
Lettered Streets, South Hill and York neighborhoods. The project entails
the physical description of approximately 2,200 resources, writing short histories on
approximately 900
resources, and creating three historic districts over a 1-1/2 year period.
Neighborhood involvement is a priority.
Quick Links
Kolby LaBree is the
research coordinator for this project. You may contact her at househist@gmail.com
or through our dedicated phone line at 360-778-8953.
Additional information
about the project can be found at the City of
Bellingham's website.
A large component of
this project is driven by volunteers in the three neighborhoods, plus a few
go-getters from outside the neighborhoods. You can become involved
with any number of aspects of the project ranging from:
-
Writing descriptions of
houses
-
Researching
city directories
-
Analyzing
historic Sanborn fire insurance maps
-
Photographing
alley structures, particularly in York and Lettered Streets
-
Writing
histories on houses
-
Recording
historic trees, particularly in York and South Hill
If you are interested in
getting involved with any or all of the project tasks, please contact us by one
of the means listed under contact at the top
of the page. The more the merrier!
Below is the time line for Bellingham's Preserve America project:
We started the project in January 2008 and have completed as of 7/10/08:
2161 properties
have been photographed and basic information recorded.
3049 photographs
have been taken. 2471
historic photos have been linked.
537 properties were found to be either post-1960 or not
standing.
That completes the first
step of the project: recording what stands in the three
neighborhoods. While volunteers are busy starting the research
portion of the project, HPNW and select volunteers are busy writing physical
descriptions for the 2,161 properties built before 1961.
The "districting worm" was first introduced at the kick-off meeting
for the project in February. Continuing with the model, the following
segments of the worm are gradually being filled in as we complete portions of
the project. Note that segments are not to scale according to the amount
of work each requires. If they were to scale, "survey" and
"gather history" would fill the screen. The worm is current as
of 7/10/08:
The following is a series of charts showing completion levels on the various
components of the survey as of 7/10/08:
The following files are
for download by the volunteers on the Bellingham Historic Resource Survey
only. Some files are small, but some files are quite large, so be sure you
look at the file size to the right of the file name before you click on a
file. Right click on the file name and Save Target As, if you would like
to save it to your computer. Otherwise, left click on the file name and a
temporary version of the file will display on your screen.
Most of the files below are in an Adobe Acrobat format (i.e., PDF extension). If you don't have Adobe Acrobat, you can
download it for free from Adobe.
General:
Lettered Streets map.pdf
(628 kb)
Lettered Streets map color.pdf
(1.7 mb)
South Hill map.pdf
(953 kb)
South Hill map color.pdf
(1.3 mb)
York map.pdf
(909 kb)
York map color.pdf
(1.6 mb)
Donated
Labor Form.doc (34 kb)
Sanborns:
Utilization of Sanborns 1940.pdf
(4.7 mb)
Sanborn
handout.pdf
(2.6 mb)
Sanborn map list.pdf
(7 kb)
Sanborn map check off sheet.xls
(300 kb)
Sanborn map check off sheet.pdf
(1.6 mb)
Sanborn map instructions.pdf
(1.2 mb)
Original town sites.pdf
(206 kb)
City Directories:
Historic Bellingham Neighborhood Street Name Changes.pdf
(8 kb)
City Directory
handout.pdf (23 kb)
Bellingham city directory 1905 searchable.pdf
(23 mb)
Bellingham city directory 1915 searchable.pdf
(35 mb)
History Write-ups:
Statement of Significance handout.pdf
(38 kb)
How to trace your house history.pdf
(143 kb)
Alley Photography:
Alley photo instructions.pdf
(85 kb)
Alley
photography assignments.pdf (9 kb)
Architectural Survey:
Architectural
cheat sheet.pdf (2.1 mb)
Lettered Streets maps.pdf
(2.9 mb)
Physical description samples.pdf
(17.7 mb)
Workshop sample
physical descriptions.pdf (2.7 mb)
Architectural Survey
Intern Files:
Below are six files:
three files of "seed" descriptions and three files of photos.
The three seed description Word files correspond to the three streets you might be working on:
F Street, G Street, or Grant Street. Same goes for the three photo files. Download the appropriate files to where you
are working and use them like you did for the initial five write-ups you
worked on. For the Word file, delete all the seed descriptions you are
not modifying so that we receive descriptions only for the properties you're
working on.
F Street “seed” paragraphs
(133 kb)
G Street “seed” paragraphs
(142 kb)
Grant Street “seed” paragraphs
(224 kb)
F Street photos.pdf
(17.0 mb)
G Street photos.pdf
(13.7 mb)
Grant St photos.pdf
(13.1 mb)
For this project only
and not to be used outside of this project, below are digital Sanborn
books for your areas. Be sure to check the current footprint and
construction date of your building against the applicable Sanborn maps:
New Whatcom 1890 Book.pdf
(1.2 mb)
New Whatcom 1891 Book.pdf
(2.0 mb)
New Whatcom 1897 Book.pdf
(3.8 mb)
Bellingham 1904 Book.pdf
(9.8 mb)
Bellingham 1913 Book.pdf
(14.3 mb)
Bellingham 1950 Book.pdf
(17.0 mb)
February
26, 2008 first public meeting
March
10, 2008 volunteer assignment meeting
April
5, 2008 house and property research
Modified: 07/14/08
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