Pima County, Ariz. – The 9th Annual Arizona Historic Preservation Conference: “Valuing Historic Perspectives” will take place June 22 through June 24, 2011 at the University Park Marriott in Tucson, 880 East Second St.
The conference, hosted by The Arizona Preservation Foundation, Arizona State Historic Preservation Office, Arizona Commerce Authority, City of Tucson and Pima County is open to the public for a fee and includes a no-host reception as well as post-conference guided and self-guided tours of some of Tucson’s historic landmarks.
The conference brings public and private historic preservation experts to Tucson from around the state to share their findings and expertise.
For the complete agenda and to register for the conference, go to www.azpreservation.com.
This year the conference, “Valuing Historic Perspectives,” is at the University Park Marriott in Tucson, 880 East Second St.
The conference is co-hosted and sponsored by the Pima County Cultural Resources & Historic Preservation Office, the City of Tucson Historic Preservation Office, Arizona Preservation Foundation, Arizona State Historic Preservation Office, Arizona Commerce Authority, Arizona Historical Society, city of Tempe and others.
A no-host reception is from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, June 22, 2011 at the Hotel Congress, 311 E. Congress St. in the Copper Hall.
Guests can meet with local and state business owners, preservationists and developers.
Post-conference, on Saturday June 25 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., there will be free admission to the Arizona Historical Society on 949 East 2nd St., the Fort Lowell Museum at 2900 North Craycroft Road and the Arizona State Museum at 1013 E. University Blvd.
Tours will also be offered at Roy P. Drachman Agua Caliente Regional Park from 9 a.m. to noon and a self-guided tour to several green retrofitted historic homes will be offered on Saturday from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. The homes have been modified to be energy efficient while maintaining their historic qualities. Maps for the green house tour will be provided in the University Park Marriott lobby June 23-25.
The Agua Caliente Regional Park tour is guided and will take you through the Ranch House visitor center, the Rose Cottage education building and the bunkhouse. Attendees will meet at the park, 12325 East Roger Road. To get a map of the site, go to http://www.pima.gov/nrpr/parks/agua_caliente/ACPA_facility.pdf
An awards ceremony will take place Friday at noon at the hotel.
Several Pima County projects funded with historic preservation bond monies, as well as an historic Tucson shrine and museum are among the winners of the 2011 Governor’s Heritage Preservation Honor Awards. The awards recognize contributions to historic preservation and promote public awareness of historic preservation in Arizona. They will be presented during a noon luncheon at the conference hotel on Friday, June 24.
The 2011 awardees include:
Randy Oden of Oden Construction and Michael Sellers of Sellers & Sons, general contractors. They worked on the Walgreen’s façade in downtown Tucson and on the county’s Canoa Ranch and Colossal Cave preservation projects.
El Tiradito (The Wishing Shrine) at 400 S. Main Ave. and La Pilita Museum rehabilitation. These are located in the city of Tucson.
Florida Station Adaptive Re-Use and Rehabilitation project. Part of the restoration of this ranch site by Pima County includes the conversion of a shop building into a classroom. Also, a bathroom was added to the bunkhouse building of the ranch in the Santa Rita Mountains.
Fort Lowell Master Plan and Preservation Plan. Poster Frost Mirto, architects. The county bond-funded preservation project is at the site of Fort Lowell, established by the Army in March, 1873. The fort protected settlers and its soldiers patrolled the border. The buildings were made of adobe and saguaro ribs.
The Governor’s Archaeology Advisory Commission also will announce its annual awards at the historic preservation conference.
These awards go to individuals, organizations and programs that contribute to the protection and preservation of Arizona’s non-renewable natural resources. They also recognize significant contributions to education about these natural resources.
Among the winners for 2011 is Cherie Freeman, an avocational archaeologist and a volunteer site steward for Pima County. She volunteers at county sites to make sure public resources remain undamaged by the public.
The commission’s lifetime achievement award will go to Raymond Thompson, Ph.D., and professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Arizona.
During the conference, Linda Mayro, director of Pima County’s Cultural Resources & Historic Preservation Office, will talk about the successes of Pima County’s voter-approved historic preservation bond
Mayro will give an overview of Pima County’s voter-supported historic preservation bond programs, which have funded more than $150 million in purchases of more than 70 properties for preservation and conservation.
They include ranchland and historic structures, and more than 125,000 acres of grazing leases. The bond money was used to buy rural ranches, to purchase easements on privately owned historic properties and to rehabilitate publicly owned historic properties such as Colossal Cave and Fort Lowell.
Mayro will explain how these bond funds, approved by voters in 1997 and in 2004, also have enabled the county to acquire properties with significant archaeological and historic significance, such as Los Morteros, the site of a Hohokam settlement along the Santa Cruz River. The site, at Silverbell Road and Linda Vista Boulevard, dates from 850 to 1300 A.D.
Her talk is set from 3 p.m. to 3:50 p.m. on Friday, June 24.
And at 4 p.m. several members of the Cultural Resources & Historic Preservation Office will talk about the county’s purchase of land to preserve open space. They’ll discuss the county’s Heritage Ranching operations and the effort to preserve and rehabilitate historic ranch buildings and structures. The speakers are Kerry Baldwin, Simon Herbert and Loy Neff. They’ll also talk about preserving important archaeological sites as conservation areas.
The conference is open to anyone interested in historic preservation and conservation. Speakers from around the state include architects and archaeologists, historic preservation planners and others.
Among them is Bob Vint, a Tucson architect whose firm worked on the restoration of San Xavier Mission, will talk about the art and architecture of the mission and the iconography of San Xavier. His talk, “Folk Baroque, the Art & Architecture of San Xavier Mission,” is set for 3 p.m. to 3:50 p.m. on Thursday, June 23.
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