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To make the more than two dozen historic sites and museums along the Pennsylvania Trails of History easier to find and explore, PHMC launched a mobile-friendly website. The website, providing information at www.patrailsofhistory.com, automatically recognizes smartphones and other mobile devices and allows users to discover and locate nearby attractions administered by PHMC. It uses advanced geolocation technology to identify the nearest Trails of History destination and provides driving directions from the user’s current location. Smartphone users now have the opportunity to explore PHMC’s four classic Trails — Military History, Industrial Heritage, Historic Homes, and Rural Farm and Village — and they can also map their own personal trail. PHMC developed the mobile website because visitors do not always plan every moment of their trip and look for things to do once they arrive at their original destination.

The website enables PHMC to disseminate timely information on events and activities happening at historic sites and museums “right now,” including details about special promotions, workshops, performances, reenactments, and crafts demonstrations to potential visitors at the moment they are making decisions. It also includes a link to www.visitpa.com, the mobile version of the Commonwealth’s tourism website that helps visitors learn about nearby attractions and amenities to complete their travel plans.

In addition to searching for nearby sites and obtaining directions, visitors are able to check in with foursquare and share their experiences and photographs immediately with Twitter and Facebook via popular social media channels offered by the website.

PHMC opened a new field office providing historic preservation services at Graeme Park, 859 County Line Road in Horsham, Montgomery County, one of twenty-five historic sites it administers along the Trails of History. The office serves residents in the eastern Pennsylvania counties of Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Chester, Delaware, Lehigh, Monroe, Montgomery, Northampton, Philadelphia, Pike, Schuylkill, and Wayne. It assists citizens, local governments, and nonprofit organizations access a broad range of programs, among them the surveying and documentation of historic places, National Register of Historic Places nominations, certified local government designations, Historical Architectural Review Board training, guidance and technical assistance, grants, rehabilitation investment tax credits, and state historical marker applications.

Located on the ground floor of a restored early nineteenth-century fieldstone barn adjacent to the mansion at Graeme Park, the office is staffed by Cory R. Kegerise, a historic preservation specialist. Kegerise, who earned a master’s degree in historic preservation from the University of Pennsylvania, previously served as the administrator of local preservation programs for the Maryland Historical Trust, headquartered in Crownsville. For the Maryland agency, he provided policy and planning guidance to local governments and community organizations on a broad range of preservation issues, managed a successful awards program, and developed and presented training and public education programs.