Center staff, working with and supervising graduate assistants and students, regularly prepares individual and district nominations to the National Register of Historic Places. Nearly 100 nominations have been submitted to the Tennessee Historical Commission (THC) in the past decade. In cooperation with the THC, the Center conducted a survey in 1995 of historic county courthouses built since 1865 resulting in the official listing of ten buildings across the state. CHP staff have also surveyed and prepared several nominations for Rosenwald Schools. Since 1997, Center staff and interns have conducted a survey of African-American Rural Churches for the THC with National Register nominations an expected result.
The Center invites local governments, chambers of commerce, state agencies, and private property owners to contact us about the possible preparation of National Register of Historic Places nominations. Prior to an assessment of the property, we ask that property owners submit the following material when requesting assistance:
(1) Photographs of the property.
(2) A property tax map showing the location of the property.
(3) Directions to the property.
(4) As much history about the property as is known and/or already written.
(5) A letter of support from the property owner, and where appropriate, interested citizens and officials from the community.
We assign National Register projects to qualified graduate students in the MTSU Public History program and closely monitor and supervise the student's preparation of the nomination. Because the project is conducted as an university public service, and for the instruction of our students, we only request that the nomination's sponsor reimburse the Center's direct expenses in preparing the nomination. These expenses vary from project to project, but usually range between $500 and $1000 for single property nominations.
National Register nomination are also prepared for eligible farms in the Century Farms Program, a major project which focuses on Tennessee farms that have been in the same family for at least 100 years.
