Community Initiative Awards for 2021

The Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office (PA SHPO) has announced the winners of its Community Initiative Awards to recognize accomplishments made in 2021. These awards acknowledge the hard work and dedication of outstanding organizations, municipalities, agencies and individuals whose work is advancing and expanding the definition of historic preservation in Pennsylvania. The awards...
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Preservation Success in All Shapes and Sizes

In May 2021 the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office (PA SHPO) asked Pennsylvanians to send in their preservation success stories to celebrate National Historic Preservation Month. Now, PA SHPO is welcoming success stories all year long — not just in May. A preservation success story can be an activity, event, person, organization or place that shines a spotlight on efforts across the...
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Editor’s Letter

Pennsylvania is home to some of the most acclaimed mural paintings in the nation, including those in our own State Capitol created by Violet Oakley, the first woman in the country to receive a public mural commission in 1902 (see “To Form a More Perfect Union,” Fall 2019), and those found on the walls of many U.S. post offices in the state, installed as part of public work projects between 1934...
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Community Initiative Awards Honor Historic Preservation Successes

The Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office (PA SHPO) has announced its Community Initiative Awards for 2020. These awards recognize individuals, organizations, municipalities, agencies and others for their hard work and dedication in achieving preservation successes throughout the commonwealth. The awards are a program of PA SHPO’s innovative statewide historic preservation plan,...
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Fighter’s Heaven: Muhammad Ali’s Training Camp in the Pennsylvania Wilderness

On a mountainside overlooking Deer Lake, in Pennsylvania’s Schuylkill County, is a restored boxers’ training camp called Fighter’s Heaven, originally built by Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) in 1972. The Champ, as he boastfully called himself, designed the boxing haven during the early phase of his post-three-year-suspension comeback tour in order to escape the hullabaloo of civilization as he trained...
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Editor’s Letter

In 2016 the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office (PA SHPO) presented its first Community Initiative Awards to recognize organizations, agencies, municipalities and individuals throughout the commonwealth for their historic preservation successes. The program has become a key component of PA SHPO’s statewide historic preservation plan, #PreservationHappensHere, encouraging...
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