Southwest Regional Office
National Trust for Historic Preservation Southwest Office
The National Trust for Historic Preservation's Southwest Office serves Arkansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.
Daniel Carey, Director
500 Main Street, Suite 1030
Fort Worth, Texas 76102
Phone: 817-332-4398
Fax: 817-332-4512
Email: swro@nthp.org
The Southwest Office is based in downtown Fort Worth, Texas in the historic Burk Burnett Building. We work closely with our Statewide and Local Partners in Arkansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas to provide a wide range of preservation services—field visits, technical information, strategic planning, guidance on best practices, financial assistance and advocacy on local, state and national preservation issues.
Education
The Southwest Office hosts and conducts training workshops in leadership, organizational development and heritage tourism development. For example, we recently presented at workshops, including: Better Boards, Your Town, Share Your Heritage and a regional meeting for our State and Local Partners. Better Boards focuses on the processes and skills that promote leadership development and sustainable organizations; Your Town is an NEA program where we help rural communities manage change in their towns; and Share Your Heritage workshops help communities develop and promote cultural heritage tourism strategies.
Grants and Technical Assistance
Preservation Funds are pools of money that are used for planning for preservation projects. Grants can also sometimes be used in emergency situations to save endangered historic places and to hire architectural and engineering services to bring critical information to projects. Such services include on-site visits and reports from experts. In addition, the SWO staff brings years of training and experience to constituents in the field. Information about the latest grants and intervention funding can be found in the regional newsletter available on this website
Capacity Building
The SWO offers the following services: board development, meeting facilitation, goal setting, etc. to local and statewide preservation organizations. These fee-for-services are tailored to address an organization's strategic planning needs.
Saving Historic Schools
In 1913, Julius Rosenwald teamed up with Booker T. Washington, on an innovative program to improve education for blacks in the south. Over the next 20 years, the Rosenwald Fund used a system of matching grants to help construct more than 5,300 school buildings. Today these modest schools, all but forgotten, are disappearing fast. The SWO is working to save them. The West Columbia Rosenwald in Brazoria County, Texas is one of the many Rosenwald Schools we have assisted with technical assistance and grants. In Huntsville, Texas the SWO retained the services of a structural engineer to make a visual inspection of the Old Huntsville High School. With a positive structural report and show of support from local preservationist, the school board decided to sell the building to a preservation minded-buyer instead of demolishing this local icon.
The Lowe's Charitable and Educational Foundation is partnering with the National Trust for Historic Preservation to support the rehabilitation and restoration of Rosenwald Schools. Grant applications must be postmarked by November 30, 2007.
Rural Heritage Development Initiative
The National Trust is pledging funds for a three-year Rural Heritage Development Initiative (RHDI) to preserve and promote cultural and heritage assets as part of a new economic development strategy in the Arkansas Delta. Based on a platform of Heritage Tourism and Main Street principles, the RHDI will help communities use local assets to achieve economic gains. The initiative is funded by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the National Trust is working in close partnership with the Arkansas Department of Arkansas Heritage, Arkansas Delta Byways, and the Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas who have provided resources and helped secure matching funds and commitments from five Main Street communities (Blytheville, Dumas, Helena, Osceola and West Memphis) and the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. In early 2006, a Field Representative was hired to coordinate this initiative out of the Delta Cultural Center in Helena, Arkansas.
Community Revitalization
The SWO works with our Community Revitalization department to provide consulting, advocacy, and financial resources to promote historic preservation as an economic development tool that builds vibrant communities. The National Trust Loan Fund provides loans and lines of credit to nonprofit organizations, local governments and for-profit entities for the rehabilitation or stabilization of properties that are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. Small Deals Loan Fund invests equity funds in smaller scale historic rehabilitation projects—those earning as little as $200,000 in federal tax credits.
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