A Luther College Campus Historic District: Really? by MARK Z. MUGGLI, Professor Emeritus of English and Decorah Historic Preservation Commission Chair
I’m interested here in another Great Society program, the groundbreaking 1966 National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). It’s less important than many of those other programs, but still worth studying. First, because it illuminates some program features that make for long-term viability. And, second, locally, because it underpins the 2021 Luther College Campus Historic District—one of only a handful of Midwest campus historic districts. The National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) The NHPA had precedents (see Hamar and Sprinkle). Still, the NHPA can without much exaggeration be called the beginning of America’s national historic preservation program. The program has been modified, but mostly by being expanded. And often by opposing political parties. A few highlights: • The original 1966 act established a National Register of Historic Places 6
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(NRHP) and individual State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPO). • In 1976, Republican President Gerald Ford ratified the Historic Tax Credits program, which provides financial rehabilitation support for some NRHP properties. (In 2017 the Trump tax reduction bill threatened these tax credits. But a bipartisan congressional group saved the program. One of the group’s leaders was Iowa’s 1st Congressional District representative Rod Blum, typically a fiscal far-far-righter, but who in this case acknowledged the rejuvenation the historic tax credit program had brought to his hometown Dubuque, and perhaps recognized the financial benefits it had delivered to some of his major supporters.) • In 1980, Democrat Jimmy Carter ratified a new Certified Local Government (CLG) program that established local agencies like the 1985 Winneshiek County Historic Preservation Commission and the 2007 Decorah Historic Preservation Commission. The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) To almost everyone’s surprise, a National Register of Historic Places listing is only honorific. Unlike some local or state listings that require design/renovation reviews, a property can be listed on the NRHP one day and demolished the next. That’s pretty much what happened in 2007 with Decorah’s 1896 East Side School. So that’s the first sad lesson about political viability: a program without teeth will be less controversial than one with strict consequences. Or perhaps the lesson is more subtle: the ideal program doesn’t have teeth, but is thought by most outsiders that it does! Despite being honorific, the NRHP designation has great cultural cachet. I’ll suggest two possible reasons. First
IMAGE COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
S
ome historians argue that Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” was the most wide-reaching domestic legislation in American history. But different parts of the program have had different histories. The 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act have been repeatedly decimated. The 1963 Clean Air Act, the 1964 Wilderness Act, the 1965 Motor Vehicle Pollution Act, the 1965 National Endowments for the Humanities and the Arts, the 1966 Endangered Species Act, and the 1967 Public Broadcasting System have been political lightning rods, but have survived. And the 1965 Medicaid/Medicare package, two national “cultural centers” (one is the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts), and many dozens of education, transportation, and safety programs are taken for granted as seemingly permanent features of American life.
Mark Muggli of all, the original NHPA standards remain unchanged. The four criteria for “Significance” and the seven criteria for “Integrity” all remain, along with their accompanying explanations, even where the language is awkward or obscure1. This continuity of standards promises a level, unchanging playing field. Second, the NRHP includes a rigorous nomination process involving local nominators, the local CLG, the State Historic Preservation Office, the State Nominations Review Committee, and the National Park Service, often with volunteer researchers and paid consultants along the way. Even a smooth nomination takes two years. More complicated nominations can take several. Many nominations are never completed. I once thought a National Register nomination was something like threading a small needle—challenging, but clear-cut and manageable. Nominating a complicated property or an historic district is actually more like hand-stitching a complete suit—jacket, pants, and shirt, and often including underwear, socks, and neck scarf.
