The practice of history involves the interpretation of past events through the analysis of physical and documentary evidence. At JMA, historical investigations are generally focused on specific places, from regions, landscapes, and districts to individual properties, sites, structures, buildings, and even single rooms or objects. The documentation and interpretation of places, regardless of their scale, often require wide-ranging professional backgrounds and expertise, from the generalized areas of cultural, social, and political history to the more specialized areas of landscape, architectural, engineering, industrial, maritime, aviation, and military history. Due to the size and diversity of JMA's professional staff, few historical assignments are beyond our in-house expertise. Historical and Historic Architectural Services – Historic Architectural Surveys and Inventories – Historic Context Development – Building and Site Chronologies – Determinations of National Register Eligibility – National/State/Local Register Nominations – Thematic Studies – Assessments of Effect – HABS/HAER/HALS Recordations – State and Local Recordations – HAZMAT Conditions Investigations Representative Projects   Ste. Genevieve Historic District Ste. Genevieve, Missouri National Park Service, Midwest Support Office and the City of Ste. Genevieve Ste. Genevieve was the last in a series of communities established by French and French-Canadian settlers in the Illinois Country during the eighteenth century. While the historic area had been designated a National Historic Landmark in 1959, existing documentation did not meet current registration standards. JMA prepared a new NHL nomination (about 50 buildings), as well as a National Register nomination (about 550 buildings), encompassing a much larger portion of the city. Jean Baptiste Bequet House, a post-in-ground French vertical-log house (Photo: JMA).     Ohio River Navigation System Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois Greenhorne & O'Mara, Inc. and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Pittsburgh District Based on extensive archival research and field work, JMA prepared a fully referenced developmental history of the Ohio River navigation system from the early-nineteenth to the late-twentieth century. JMA recommended the entire system eligible for the National Register, both for its individually notable engineering features and as a complex that demonstrated the evolution of lock and dam technology from the 1920s to the 1990s.   Elsworth Dam back channel (Photo: U.S. Engineer Office, 1940).     Aluminum Industry Pittsburgh Vicinity, Pennsylvania National Park Service, Denver Service Center, and the Western Pennsylvania Partnerships Branch As part of a tourism development plan, JMA prepared a comprehensive historic context for the aluminum industry in southwestern Pennsylvania and an intensive-level survey of properties related to this industry. The survey included production facilities, office buildings, a research laboratory, executive residences, a union hall, and residential and commercial districts associated with the industry. JMA recommended four properties eligible for National Historic Landmark designation and fourteen properties eligible for National Register listing.   Example of historic architectural recordation form used in project (Image: JMA).     New Jersey Railroad Bridges Trenton to Camden, New Jersey Bechtel Infrastructure Corporation and the New Jersey Transit Corporation The proposed Southern New Jersey Light Rail System was slated for alteration or replacement of twenty historic bridges and culverts along an existing thirty-four-mile rail corridor. JMA documented these structures to Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) standards prior to construction. The project would also have an adverse effect on the Cooper Street Historic District in Camden. JMA documented two nineteenth-century townhouses to Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) standards and reassessed the integrity of the district.   Timber trestle bridge over Crosswicks Creek, Burlington and Mercer Counties, New Jersey (Photo: JMA).     Pownal Tannery North Pownal, Vermont Stone & Webster, Inc. and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Pownal Tannery opened in the 1870s as a cotton mill and was transformed in the 1930s into a large-scale tannery. Following closure in the 1980s, the property was designated as an EPA Superfund site due to the presence of heavy metals and other wastes. As mitigation associated with planned remediation, JMA prepared a fully referenced narrative description and history of the mill/tannery complex; numerous archival photographic prints; an illustrated brochure; and a permanent, on-site display panel. All work was conducted under HAZMAT conditions.   Company houses at Pownal Tannery, late-nineteenth century (Photo: JMA).     Wheeling Historic District Wheeling, West Virginia HLM Design, Inc. and the U.S. General Services Administration, Mid-Atlantic Region JMA recorded four properties in the Wheeling Historic District as mitigation associated with proposed expansion of the U.S. Federal Building and Courthouse. Each building was a nineteenth-century dwelling, converted to commercial or institutional use during the early-twentieth century. JMA's documentation included Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS)-format written, photographic, and graphic documentation and a state inventory form on each property.   Wheeling, West Virginia, streetscape: four historic properties at right, existing courthouse at rear (Photo: JMA).     New Jersey Public Housing Statewide Housing Authority of the City of Camden JMA prepared a historical study of public housing in New Jersey as mitigation associated with demolition of Westfield Acres in Camden. The purpose of the study was to place this and other public-housing projects within appropriate historic contexts, thus facilitating future evaluations of National Register eligibility. JMA's report discussed the social and political aspects of public housing in the state, as well as the architectural design and innovative technology employed at various projects.   Lincoln Homes, Trenton, 1940, view showing units and power plant (Photo: National Archives).   Additional Projects Naval Base Philadelphia Grand Canyon Stratford Hall Christ Church Cathedral To Top