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Location On Historical Places List Misrepresented


Texsport

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I recently discovered that my grandfather's home in Virginia Minnesota is on the list of national historical places.

 

Information suggests that the house was built by the person named on the historical list. This is not correct, as my grandfather built the house years earlier, and sold it to the named owner in 1912.

 

1912 is the date given for the construction of the house, but the correct history is that the new owner purchased the house from my grandfather, then added a room and stuccoed over the original external clap board exterior. I have several photographs of the original structure. Additionally, 3-4 years ago, the house was for sale, and I spoke to the sellers, who confirmed that they had discovered the clap board original exterior during repair work.

 

The house is called the Coates House. It is in Virginia, Minnesota. It is registered as the Coates House, for the person who purchased it from my grandfather. Mr. Coates owned a local hotel.

 

My grandfather, who built the house, had a Masters Degree from Harvard in 1899, and was hired as a mining engineer and mine superintendent during the iron mining boom early in the century. He sold the Virginia house because he moved to his newly acquired private lake property near-by.

 

Shouldn't the house actually bear my grandfathers name as well?

 

Texsport

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Shouldn't the house actually bear my grandfathers name as well?

 

Texsport

 

No. The waymark will be named the same as they are listed on the Register. How a property is named on the Register is normaly done by the person competing the Registry Nomination with the approval of State Historic Preservation Office. Properties are listed on Register for various reasons and sometimes the name reflects when the building became significant.

Edited by BruceS
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I recently discovered that my grandfather's home in Virginia Minnesota is on the list of national historical places.

 

Information suggests that the house was built by the person named on the historical list. This is not correct, as my grandfather built the house years earlier, and sold it to the named owner in 1912.

 

1912 is the date given for the construction of the house, but the correct history is that the new owner purchased the house from my grandfather, then added a room and stuccoed over the original external clap board exterior. I have several photographs of the original structure. Additionally, 3-4 years ago, the house was for sale, and I spoke to the sellers, who confirmed that they had discovered the clap board original exterior during repair work.

 

The house is called the Coates House. It is in Virginia, Minnesota. It is registered as the Coates House, for the person who purchased it from my grandfather. Mr. Coates owned a local hotel.

 

My grandfather, who built the house, had a Masters Degree from Harvard in 1899, and was hired as a mining engineer and mine superintendent during the iron mining boom early in the century. He sold the Virginia house because he moved to his newly acquired private lake property near-by.

 

Shouldn't the house actually bear my grandfathers name as well?

 

Texsport

 

Texsport -- all this information you have (about the original materials being stuccoed over, the house being built by your grandfather and PURCHASED by Coates, etc) is important historical information that the local historic group would LOVE to have!

 

Give them a polite call and offer to work with them to nail down all the errors and omissions in their artifact. Local history groups are usually very gracious and accomodating for folks who are coming in a spirit of preserving history, not "correctimg your group's mistakes that wronged my relative".

 

The local group may be willing to correct the record locally and with the National Register for you -- and add your grandfather's name WITH Coates name. Alternately, they may not go to the NR, but might correct the knowedge and narrative of the house locally. Then maybe YOU could find another category to WM the house in, with the new name?

 

We have a farmhouse in Grand Prairie TX called the Jordan-Bowles house, which was built by Jordan but soon sold and lived in for decades by Bowles. see WM807F here: http://www.Waymarking.com/waymarks/WM807F_Jordan_Bowles_House

 

Correcting the name of the waymark is not something that you can probably get here at Waymarking, for the valid reasons BruceS stated. UNLESS the name is changed at the National Register database level (we think this is unlikely but perhaps might be possible), the name of the WM must match the name in the database. That is how the category was set up. The rules must be followed or chaos ensues.

 

I sense from your post that it is the CREDIT for building the house and ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of your grandfather's contribution to the community and this part of its history that is important to you. This valid goal can be accomplished by working with the local historical society folks. Please treat them kindly -- they are good-intentioned, good-hearted, unpaid, VOLUNTEERS, who meant no disrespect to your grandfather and who are doing the best they can with the information they had at the time. :)

 

They went with the fragmentary story they had for the house. They should be very glad to have more facts to flesh out the history of the house, and connect it with MN's vast anbd fascinating mining history! :D

Edited by Benchmark Blasterz
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The date when the house became significant is the construction date, as it's architecture is what is named as it's reason for it's listing.

 

I suspect that the residents at the time were the individuals who solicited its listing.They were not related in any way to either Mr. Kendall or Mr. Coates.

Edited by Texsport
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This is important information, of course, and wonderful to have.

 

Our waymarks are based on the best information we have. If this is a listing from the NRHP, then that is what we are tied into. It might be good to see if you can get a copy of the original nomination form which will have all the detailed information on it. I think there is a procedure for amending that information with the NPS, but I'm not sure. Contacting them might be worthwhile for you.

 

As far as the waymark itself is concerned, please contact the person who created the waymark and pass on this additional information. Although the name of the waymark will still have to correspond to the name on the NRHP, this personal information can be incorporated into the waymark description which will be an excellent way to make it available to the rest of the world.

 

From time to time I get notes like this and it's great to be able to add, or correct, information in a waymark. Recently I got a not about a mural that I had mistakenly attributed to an artist of the same name. I was embarrassed, but also glad for the additional, correct information.

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