The story of Waseca, Minnesota (pop. 9,221) is found in its shops, churches, civic buildings, parks, and homes. These themes and more are explored in an educational and entertaining website and app created by Waseca High School students in the Waseca History Tour Class under the supervision of social studies teacher John Hanson. “The students that created the drafts of these [tours] were incredible researchers but more they were aggregators,” Hanson said. “They went out and found everything they possibly could under the sun on these topics, and in the process then accumulated it and we together as a class sorted through it.” The 16-stop tour takes participants on an interesting and informative visit to the key places, people and events in Waseca and the surrounding area. Highlighted stops include properties that are designated as local landmarks and listed in the National Register of Historic Places, such as the Hofmann Apiaries, Trowbridge Park, the Waseca County Courthouse, the John W. Aughenbaugh House, and numerous buildings located in the Waseca Commercial Historic District. The goal of the project was to present snapshot histories with key information, images, and interviews, with opportunities to discover more. “Each one of these tours has an element to it that’s unique,” Hanson said. Visitors are encouraged to provide feedback and the app allows people to participate by giving them an opportunity to share a memory or photo at a tour stop. “We recognize we don’t have access to everything, and we would appreciate it if people wanted to tell their story so we could contact them,” Hanson said. The new website is both informative and engaging, with numerous links and layers that allow users to immerse themselves in and learn about the community's cultural heritage in a fun and educational way. The project was made possible with support from the City of Waseca, Waseca Public Schools, Waseca County, Discover Waseca Tourism, the Waseca Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Waseca Heritage Preservation Commission. Several area newspapers – the Waseca County News, Waseca County Pioneer, and Mankato Free Press – gave Hanson and his students free access to articles to use for their research and their website. A portion of the initial funding for the equipment, training, app and website development was made possible by grants from the Waseca Area Foundation and the Certified Local Government grant program. Hanson gave a presentation about the website and app during the State Historic Preservation Office’s 2024 PreserveMN Conference in Red Wing. While the website is up and running and is a valuable source of information, the tours are intended to be experienced with the app, which is GPS driven and can be downloaded for free. “If you are using the app, the intent would be to not have people with their face in their phones reading all of this, so what we went ahead and did was we secured pretty good voices in Waseca,” Hanson said. One of the voices that can be heard on the tours is Jack Williams, the longtime theater director at the Waseca High School. The website currently has tours on the history of Waseca, and will soon have tours about schools, parks, restaurants and shops. “We’re not done yet, this is really fun,” said Hanson. “We’re going to spend another year continuing to build it along with these other tours that will draw people to this app and this site to be able to use it for all these purposes and it will benefit the community in a lot of different ways.”
The Minnesota State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) maintains an ever-growing inventory of surveyed properties, including associated inventory forms, site forms, National Register of Historic Places nominations, and reports. This is vital information for federal and state agencies, municipalities, consultants, educational institutions, and other organizations and individuals involved in cultural resource management. Most of the documentation consists of inventory forms that record information on properties associated with architecture and/or history, referred to as the above-ground inventory. In November 2023, the Minnesota SHPO launched the Minnesota Statewide Historic Inventory Portal (MnSHIP), a map-based application containing the digitized aboveground inventory developed in partnership with the Minnesota Department of Transportation Cultural Resources Unit (MnDOT CRU) and Minnesota Geospatial Information Office (MnGeo). MnSHIP makes available over 115,000 individual property records. Each record contains geometry showing the property’s location, data fields, downloadable inventory forms, and images. Available on any internet connected device, this powerful dataset is now easily accessible to those who rely on it to make decisions about historic properties. The MnSHIP application has revolutionized the way that agencies, historic preservation consultants, and the public view and interact with the documentation. MnSHIP is also integral to daily SHPO staff work because it provides efficient access to essential research information and, perhaps most importantly, property eligibility findings comprising the administrative record. Beginning in 2019, SHPO, in partnership with MnDOT CRU and with the assistance of consulting firm Mead & Hunt, began a massive effort to scan the entire above-ground inventory and create geographic information system (GIS) data showing the location of most of the inventoried properties, allowing these digital locations to be mapped. Simultaneous to this effort, SHPO and MnDOT CRU partnered with MnGeo to develop an application that would make available the digitized above-ground inventory and feature a fully digital process for the creation, review, acceptance, and retrieval of digital inventory records for above-ground properties, easing the burden on researchers, form preparers, and SHPO staff. The MnSHIP application was designed with a map-based interface as well as searchable data fields, harnessing the power of the ease of spatial navigation to retrieve property information. This application allows all users of the above-ground inventory, including SHPO staff, consultants, agency staff, and the public, to interact with the inventory from wherever they have an internet connection. In addition to map and database searches, users can utilize MnSHIP’s Azure AI Search technology to conduct free-text searches across all uploaded documents, export comma separated value (CSV) tables of search results, and download and print forms. The launch of MnSHIP in late 2023 was met with resounding success by a wide variety of application users, including consultants, state and federal agency staff, SHPO staff, and researchers. As voiced by one of MnSHIP’s project proponents at MnDOT CRU, “Put simply, the MnSHIP application unleashed the potential of SHPO’s historic inventory, modernized record workflow and stewardship, and changed the way that Minnesotans access the records that document our shared past.”
The Minnesota State Historic Preservation Office (MN SHPO), like all SHPO’s, has continuously accepted National Register nomination forms from any preparer. Additionally, MN SHPO staff have actively promoted the availability of the program to members of the public through site visits, lectures, and the Statewide Preservation Conference. One of the primary critiques about the National Register program nationally is the accessibility of the documentation. Upon close examination of our program, we recognized that while we were actively encouraging the public to complete draft nominations, many people were still overwhelmed by the form and the information that seemed necessary to successfully list a property. In early 2024 the MN SHPO created a new way for the public to submit information to our office for an “in-house” opinion of eligibility. The National Register Questionnaire (NRQ) consists of a single-page submission form. The submitter is asked to complete what they can on the form, which includes a section for General Property Information like the address and property identification number; a Property Description including the date of construction, alterations, moves, architect, and style – if known; and Property Significance, which is a free text field that asks the submitter to “any known history of the property.” NRQ submitters are also encouraged to submit attachments such as current photographs, historic photographs, sketch plans, and any important information that might be available (newspaper articles, etc.). The NRQ and the attachments are then emailed to SHPO where they are processed for review. Prior to the NRQ process, evaluation requests, not otherwise subject to a regulatory review timeline, were handled as staff was able to get to them. This often-left submitters without word on their property for months at a time. The new process includes a confirmation of receipt and expected review timeline (at present, 60-90 days). SHPO staff have been told repeatedly that the expected review timeline is a positive tool, and we have noticed submitters are not reaching out to “check-in” as often. The timeline also helps staff to organize the workload with other, competing program requirements. Because the NRQ does not require the formal argument of a draft national register nomination, SHPO staff find that submitters are sharing more information candidly. This has presented additional avenues of research for staff to explore and has led to more inquiries about diverse properties. Since the introduction of the NRQ process MN SHPO has reviewed twenty-one (21) submissions, seven (7) of which we believe would be good candidates for National Register listing. Informal feedback from users tells us that process, as well as the plain language explanation found on our website and shared by staff, have made the program feel more approachable. Feedback to the program thus far has been positive and we are looking forward to its continued use.
