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National Park Service awards $25.2 million in Save America's Treasures grants for historic sites and collections

The grants pay for 50 projects in 31 states, from a Frank Lloyd Wright studio in Wisconsin to the archives of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. Nonprofits, states, tribes and local governments share the money, which comes from offshore oil and gas revenue.

A gilded and painted wooden altarpiece with carved saints in niches and a crucifix at its center rises behind an altar draped in red cloth, under a ceiling of painted beams in red, white and gold
The altar of Mission Dolores, Mission San Francisco de Asís, in San Francisco, photographed in 2012.Carol M. Highsmith / The Library of Congress, Carol M. Highsmith Archive

Washington. The National Park Service has awarded $25.2 million in Save America's Treasures grants to 50 projects in 31 states that preserve nationally significant historic sites and collections, the agency announced this week. The grants go to states, tribes, local governments and nonprofit organizations.

The money comes from the Historic Preservation Fund, which is paid for by revenue from federal oil and gas leases on the Outer Continental Shelf and does not use tax dollars, the agency said. These awards come from the fund's fiscal 2025 appropriations.

Who received grants

The agency's list names 49 projects, which by the Herald's count add up to $24,415,253. Thirty are preservation projects on buildings and structures and 19 are collections projects. Eighteen received $750,000, the most a project can receive.

Among the nonprofit recipients, the California Missions Foundation received $750,000 to preserve and stabilize the sanctuary art of Mission San Francisco de Asís in San Francisco. The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation received $750,000 to rehabilitate the Hillside Drafting Studio at Taliesin in Spring Green, Wis. The Pui Tak Center in Chicago received $750,000 to rehabilitate the On Leong Merchants Association Building, and the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg received the same amount for the care and preservation of its Elie Wiesel collections. The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in Alabama received $154,905 to preserve and rehouse its collection.

Other grants went to cities, among them Sacramento for its historic boardwalk, to state agencies and universities, and to the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma for the water tower at Wheelock Academy.

How the program works

Save America's Treasures was established in 1998 and has awarded more than 1,300 grants totaling more than $300 million, according to the Park Service. It runs the program with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The Park Service manages the preservation grants, for properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places for national significance or designated National Historic Landmarks. The institute manages the grants for collections, which include artifacts, documents, sculptures and other works of art.

Collections projects may receive $25,000 to $750,000 and preservation projects $125,000 to $750,000, according to the institute. Recipients must match each grant with at least an equal amount from sources other than the federal government, and projects run one to three years. A structure or collection that has received a grant from the program before cannot receive another.

The program's page lists two funding notices, one for preservation and one for collections, that closed to applications on June 16.

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