Inside the Nation's Attic
National and state registers include America's quirkiest historic objets d'art.
By David Pike | Online Only | June 6, 2003
The Boll Weevil Monument in Enterprise, Ala., a tribute to the insect, is on the National Reigster.
Credit: USDA History Collection, Special Collections, National Agricultural Library
Chances are, Deputy Bob Olinger wasn't thinking about his wallet when he took a fatal bullet from Billy the Kid at the Lincoln County Courthouse in Lincoln, N.M., on April 28, 1881. Sheriff Pat Garrett, executor of Olinger's estate, didn't think much of it either, describing it as "one wallet with papers of no value."
Historians disagreed. Today, because of its association with the outlaw, the brown leather wallet appears on the New Mexico State Register of Cultural Properties.
Such is the intent of the state and National Registers: to identify and protect historic sites, structures, and objects "that are significant in American history, architecture, archeology, engineering, and culture," according to the guidelines of the National Park Service, which oversees the National Register of Historic Places. Nominations to the register usually come from grassroots efforts of communities and outline the significance of a site for local or national audiences.
Since its inception in 1966, the National Register in Washington, D.C., has catalogued nearly 73,000 historic nominations; countless others have been documented in state registers. From the Indian Mounds of Mississippi to Jackson Pollock's studio in Manhattan, the listings on the state and National Registers form a national scrapbook of sorts. Like a family album, the contents can be varied: giant ducks, roller coasters, and other folk art monuments wedged between Queen Anne houses and Main Street historic districts.
"We want to reflect every significant aspect of history that has left its imprint on the landscape," says Carol Shull, keeper of the National Register of Historic Places. "If there is a place that can help tell the story of our history, we include it. We deal with the mundane, the ugly, even the quirky aspects of our history. All of those are important stories in American history."
Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village in Ventura, Calif.
Credit: Janice Wilson, courtesy of CSHPO
It takes many voices to tell those stories. One, 60-year-old folk artist "Grandma" Prisbrey, began work on a "bottle village" in her Ventura, Calif., back yard in 1956. Working on her dominion for 12 years, Prisbrey created a one-third-acre landscape of jugs, beer bottles, and gallon-size bleach containers mortared into walkways, wishing wells, and chambers with names like "Rumpus Room" and "Cleopatra's Bedroom." For its distinctive representation of environmental folk art, Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village earned its place on the National Register in 1996.
Roller coasters, where motion sickness is a form of entertainment, are also included on the National Register. The 1991 listing for the "Leap-the-Dips" coaster at Lakemont Park in Altoona, Pa., for example, commemorates one of only a pair of surviving side-friction coasters. Leap-the-Dips, built in 1902, is one of the oldest standing roller coasters in the world.
Many states have registered the vestiges of famous trails, like Kansas' Vermillion Creek Crossing on the Oregon Trail. Another trail tells the story of an American Vesuvius. In 1790, Chief Keoua Kuahu'ula and 250 of his warriors and their families left their mark in ash when the Kilauea volcano unexpectedly erupted, killing 80 people. The "1790 Footprints" in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park even include hoof prints from their Polynesian hogs.
Long Island, N.Y.'s "Big Duck" was listed on the National Register in 1997.
Credit: Beth Savage
New York's "Big Duck" landed on the state register in 1997 as an outstanding example of roadside architecture and literalism in advertising. Duck farmer Martin Mauer built the 20-foot white Peking duck in Flanders, N.Y., in 1931, using wood, concrete, wire mesh, and two Ford ModelT red taillights for eyes. Mauer sold eggs in the roadside stand; today, the store sells duck souvenirs.
The world's largest light bulb, at the Thomas A. Edison Memorial Tower in Edison, N.J., is listed on both the New Jersey state register and the National Register. Built at the site of Edison's 1875 research laboratory, a 131-foot-tall art deco tower supports a 13-foot, 8-inch-high Corning Glass Works light bulb.
The National Register also honors smaller contributions to history, like the "Boll Weevil Monument" at the intersection of Main and College Streets in Enterprise, Ala., described as the only memorial in the world honoring a "detrimental insect." Unveiled on December 11, 1919, this statue of a female figure holding a boll weevil aloft recognizes the little cotton-chewing menace as the impetus behind diversified agriculture and, thus, economic stability. Or, as the inscription more eloquently puts it, the statue stands "in profound appreciation of the boll weevil and what it has done as the herald of prosperity."
The number of items listed in our scrapbook is growing; the National Register receives about 1,500 new nominations each year.
"To understand ourselves as a people and as a nation, we have to recognize and preserve our cultural heritage," Shull says. "It embodies our identity and the uniqueness and character of our communities. Understanding our history is critical to our health as a people. Otherwise, we're lost."
David Pike is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C.
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