Historic Preservation Commission sees successful year

The efforts to preserve Donaldson Hall got a boost this past semester from a student with an interest in keeping history alive.

"I think it's a really important building on campus, and I think anything that can be done to help it would be a good thing," Jillian Brough, a recent Montana State University- Northern graduate, said.

Brough worked to collect information to compile a Montana Historic Property Record for the building, the first step toward securing a place for the building on the National Register of Historic Places. The project will be continued by the Havre/Hill County Historic Preservation Commission, which oversaw her work.

The project she completed for credit at the university gave her a reason to get involved in historic preservation, something she said she's been interested in since she was a young child.

"To be involved in the community," she said, "is what I liked the most about it."

The project will help both the college and the community, she said.

"In a small town like Havre, you feel like you can actually make a difference," she added.

"It's a lot of work, but I think it's worth it in the end," she said.

"As students, they're just eager to not only learn, but to explore and research, and that's what we need," Historic Preservation Officer Becki Miller said about Brough's work. "I mean, we're a volunteer organization.

"It's still going to take additional time; it's a huge amount of work," she said.

"(Brough) got it started, got the ball rolling, and hopefully we'll be able To get it finished in the next year or so," she added.

Nominations like the one for Donaldson often take as long as two years, she said.

It took that long to secure a nomination for the Kiwanis Chapel in Beaver Creek Park.

The Chapel's nomination was announced recently along with the awarding of grant money approved for restoration work.

One of the Havre/Hill County Historic Preservation Commission's goals for the coming year is to create and strengthen relationships with the community, like the burgeoning one at Northern.

An ongoing relationship with the history department could mean more students helping the commission with projects while earning credits toward their degrees.

Relationships are already forming, and the hope is to strengthen those and create new ones, Miller said.

Other relationships with area realtors, contractors, developers and other organization would help bring preservation issues to the forefront of projects.

"Our goal is that when a historic ... property is in question, they automatically think of us," Miller said.

With only seven active volunteers, having the manpower from the college could help complete more projects. Even so, the commission has been successful in many projects.

"It's not a huge amount of people to be accomplishing what we've been accomplishing in the past year," Miller said.

"I think it's important that we want to be an organization that is not only proactive," she said, "but also that we are able to partner with people in the community and develop relationships that make sure that we're preserving all the great historic buildings and sites that we have here in Hill County."

Some of the projects that have been completed in the past several years include the creation of a downtown business area and walking tour map with banners to mark the area; the reprinting of the walking tour map for the historic residential district; the Kiwanis historic register nomination acceptance; and grant awards through the Ame r i can Re c ove ry and Reinvestment Act funding for both the chapel and Fort Assinniboine.

A website also has been completed with an interactive tour of the business and railroad areas at http://www.havrehillpreservation. org. "History is one of those things that, when it's gone, it's gone," Miller said. "And it has so much more impact on people if they can see and touch and feel it."

Things have changed over the years, she said. For example, buildings have been remodeled and others have been flattened to parking lots. The character of those buildings has been lost along with the structures and their original features.

"They just don't make things like they used to," she said.

"I think it's important to embrace that part of our heritage and that part of our past and to keep it intact," she added.

Another of the commission's goals is to work with downtown business owners to make them aware of the historic value of their buildings and what they can do to secure grant funding to help with restorations, Miller said.

"It's more of an issue of there's a historic fabric to those buildings downtown, but you can't see it because it's been covered up" with things like new siding or modern windows, she said.

"It's something that's there," she said. "We just have to work at preserving it and bringing it back."

Havre is unique in a lot of ways, she said. The area boasts the railroad, Fort Assinniboine, multiple museums and historical sites, and agriculture.

Heritage tourism that focuses on how people have lived and worked through the generations is becoming big, and because of agriculture and ranching, the area has that appeal, she added.

Agriculture isn't the only thing the area is known for, though, she said.

"People can come to Havre and do several different things within the county," she said.

"It's not like we're just known for our agriculture; we've got other things to promote."

For more information on the commission and historic preservation issues and efforts in the area, Miller can be reached at 376-3230, or people can visit http://www.havrehillpreservation.org.