Portland Museum

Preserve America Designation

Feb 25, 2006

The Portland Museum and Portland NOW worked together in December 2005 to recieve a Preserve America Neighborhood designation.

On Friday February 24th the Portland Museum received the news that the designation had been given. An official press release will soon be given.

Preserve America is a program created by Mrs. Bush to save communities and now neighborhoods that have a place in history. Portland met all the requirements needed.

The Portland Preservation Alliance will be a major part of this designation for Portland. They will meet again on March 9th at 5:30 in the Portland Museum and we hope that many other people who care about Portland will come and find out what will be taking place.

On February 8th the alliance held their first meeting and one of the immediate things that will be addressed is how to save Portland homes.
Their are many things happening in the preservation area for Portland, but due to lack of people some of them are not being furthered. We need people to volunteer time, knowledge and input.

The Portland Museum applied for a Preserve America grant that will help create three Heritage Trails. This will be a huge task. Research will be conducted and designing of the markers will be needed.

Heritage Tourism is a major economic benefit. One tour path has been completed and it was conducted with the Photography Interns from the Portland Museum. They enjoyed it. But other tours need to be conducted too in order to make sure that it is a good tour. These will start when the weather warms up and if anyone is interested they contact the museum at 776-7678.

The Wharf Park plan isn't moving ahead as quickly as it could. Many factors come into play for that.

The bottom line is that all efforts to save and preserve Portland are suffering for lack of participation by residents and others who care about Portland. The residents of the neighborhood are needed. We all have busy lives and the 25 or 30 people who constantly help need your help. There is so much going on that they are spread really thin.

Contact the Portland Museum or send an email to mturner57mary@netscape.net to receive more information about what you can do.