Hotel Sends Volunteers to Oregon Depot
By Margaret Foster | Online Only | Apr. 8, 2009
Hampton Hotel volunteer Patrick Wilson (left) cleans the inside of a Union Pacific Caboose with Troutdale City Council Member Matthew Wand at The Rail Depot Museum in Troutdale, Ore., on March 26, 2009. An original station from the historic Union Pacific Railroad network and one of the oldest rail depot stations in Oregon, the museum is also the first landmark refurbishment in Hampton Hotels’ Save-A-Landmark program’s 2009 year of “All-American Landmarks."
Credit: Robin Weiner
Last month, some hotel employees skipped a couple days of work and rolled up their sleeves to clean up an Oregon museum.
On March 26, as part of the Save-A-Landmark program, 25 volunteers from Hampton Hotels began repairing the Rail Depot Museum in Troutdale, Ore. Program volunteers will clean up eight other sites around the country later this year.
Since April 2000, the hotel chain has spent $3.5 million on 42 American places, from the Memphis motel where Martin Luther King was assassinated to the world's largest cuckoo clock.
"We are ready to do whatever is needed—paint, reconstruct, landscape or other refurbishments the sites need—to salute these All-American landmarks," Judy Christa-Cathey, vice president of brand marketing for Hampton, said in a statement.
In 2006, the National Trust for Historic Preservation recognized Save-A-Landmark with a National Preservation Honor Award. The same year, Hampton Hotels won a Preserve America Presidential Award.
When Hampton invited people to vote online last November to choose from 27 sites for 2009, about 45,000 people cast their votes.
The Oregon depot museum, built in 1907, was the 42nd site Hampton restored. The hotel chain aims to repair sites in all 50 states by next year, the program's 10th anniversary.
"We're looking for places we haven't been," says spokesman Chris Epting. "Other charitable programs have suffered in this economy, but this one hasn't. It's still going on, stronger than ever."
This year's sites are:
· Abraham Lincoln Boyhood Home at Knob Creek, Hodgenville, Ky.
· Portland Observatory, Portland, Maine,
· Mayowood Mansion, Rochester, Minn.
· The Neon Museum, Las Vegas, Nev.
· Robert Frost Farm, Derry, N.H.
· Mayberry Old City Jail, Mount Airy, N.C.
· Rail Depot Museum, Troutdale, Ore.
· Washington House, Two Rivers, Wis.
· Historic Atlas Theater, Cheyenne, Wyo.
Nominate a landmark for refurbishment at http://www.hamptonlandmarks.com/NominateALandmark.aspx
Subscribe to the Today's News RSS feed
Comments
Submitted by BranDee at: April 9, 2009
What a fantastic program! It's nice to see that someone cares about our historic properties, big and small. Great job!