Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Resources

This is page providing resources that editors can use to create articles about properties and districts listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Resources of national scope are given first, then by-state-and-territory reports of what resources are available, followed by useful resources for maintenance and other purposes. Also of interest is WP:NRHPMOS, a Style Guide guideline to be followed when creating articles under the scope of this project, and WP:NRHPFAQ, a list of frequently asked questions about the project.

Resources of national scope

NPS Focus

The NRHP's "NPS Focus" system is provided by the U.S. National Park Service. It is a database providing information about each NRHP listing and, for some places, links to NRHP application documents in PDF format. The search interface can be found here. To find information about a listing, simply go to the Focus site, type in the official NRHP name, select a geographic region if desired, and click Search. The site will return a list of NRHP listings from which you can select the appropriate link. The system will always show clickable links for the NRHP application document and accompanying photo set for the place, whether or not those are available. Clicking the links will often download a PDF file that merely states "The PDF file for this National Register record has not yet been digitized." It is possible to discern whether there will be a useful file available, before doing that download, however. You can see a thumbnail image of the file, first. If the image is of an actual document you're in luck. Click on the previews to open up the full documents.

Documents are available for almost all places in some states (e.g. Alaska and Connecticut), and for almost no places in other states. In some states there are separate, state systems which provide the NRHP application documents. For more information about state resources, see State and territory specific sources below.

According to a NPS Focus status report page, Focus contains a "skeletal record" for all properties listed in or before June 2010. All properties listed after June 2010 can be found in the weekly-updated list link here. The skeletal record can be queried as detailed above or even downloaded in its entirety here. One of our members, User:Elkman, has downloaded the database and hosts it on his personal website here so that project members can query the database without having to download it. The most commonly used tool on Elkman's site is the Infobox Creator, commonly known as the "Elkman NRHP infobox generator," which parses the database information into a detailed pre-fabricated NRHP infobox that can be used in new articles. To use the infobox generator, search for the name or reference number of the desired site. You can then cut-and-paste the infobox (and other useful information such as categories and talk page material) into an article. Note: There is a consensus, accepted by most project participants, not to use the Elkman tools to create sub-stub articles en masse but rather to use the tool output as a starting point. It is desirable to at least include a paragraph or two in new articles explaining why the site is listed on the NRHP and/or any other major details, if you can ascertain such.

NRHP nomination forms

Official National Register of Historic Places nomination documents are available in some form for all listings. It is highly recommended that every NRHP article use the official NRHP Inventory/Nomination document as a source about the listing. They often include primary research information including description of the condition of a property at the time the document was written and secondary research information about the historical importance of the place. They are provided by the Federal government but are often written by state or local government staff or by private consultants or other parties who have not transferred copyright. As such, they are generally not in the public domain, even though most U.S. Federal government works are. Unless they are prepared by Federal staff workers, the copyright is believed to be held by the author of the document. If they are public domain, you might include text from these documents directly without paraphrasing, but it is desirable in either case to summarize them and paraphrase for better article quality. The NRHP wikiproject generally treats public domain texts exactly like any other sources, except that quotes from them may be longer than would represent "fair use" of copyrighted material. It is always helpful to provide a link to public domain materials that are available on the web, either as an external link or as an explicit reference, just as it is helpful to link to copyright-protected materials. The NRHP nomination documents include information about the historical significance of a property, a brief description of the property, and can sometimes even include pictures or maps.

Almost all NRHP nomination documents and accompanying pictures are in the Focus database for Multiple Property Submissions (see Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/MPS cover sheets), National Historic Landmarks, and sites owned by the National Park Service, as well as for sites listed in the following states:

  Almost all nominations online at NPS Focus

  Almost all nominations online at state-level or other source

  Almost all nominations online, but require payment

  Some nominations online at state-level or other source

• Alabama
• Alaska
• American Samoa
• Arizona
• California
• Colorado
• Connecticut
• Delaware
• District of Columbia
• Federated States of Micronesia
• Guam
• Hawaii
• Kansas
• Kentucky
• Marshall Islands
• Mississippi
• Nebraska
• Nevada
• New Hampshire
• New Jersey
• North Dakota
• Northern Mariana Islands
• Oklahoma
• Oregon
• Puerto Rico
• U.S. Minor Islands
• U.S. Virgin Islands
• Utah
• Washington
• West Virginia
• Wyoming

Nomination forms that the NPS Focus system asserts "have not yet been digitized" may or may not be available in electronic form from the NPS or state-level organizations. For detailed information about state-level and other resources, see below. All nomination forms are available upon request from the NPS, either in electronic form by email or in photocopied form to be sent through the U.S. postal service. To obtain these documents, you can send an email to nr_reference@nps.gov, or you can send a letter to the following address:

National Register of Historic Places

National Park Service
1201 I St. NW
8th Floor (MS 2280)

Washington, DC 20005

In the email or letter, include the name of the property, county, state, NRHP reference number (if available), and the name of the Thematic Resource, Multiple Resource Area, or Multiple Property Submission (if applicable). There is a limit of two paper copies per request, but there is no such limit on email.

NHL Summaries

The National Park Services NHL search site provides access to a webpage summary for every NHL site, including for archaeological sites where the NRHP text is not made available. This summary page includes a short statement of significance of site based on the NRHP text. The NHL webpage sometimes also includes current and past status information for sites that are threatened. This NHL webpage summary is usually authoritative on the official NHL name for the site, which may differ from the official NRHP listing name for the site shown in the NRIS system. When an NRHP site is also a NHL, the NHL name takes precedence in the title of the NRHP infobox of an article and usually the title of the article as well. This summary page is usually authoritative on the date of NHL designation, which should be added into the NRHP infobox of the article.

While these webpages and documents are usually accurate, some errors have been found in fields as critical as the reference number of the site, the site's name, and the site's NHL designation date. Some of the errors have been reported to the National Park Service and are under review. A working list of known or apparent errors with names of sites appears here. Any errors you find should be reported at that article as well.

Images

Free image sources for the United States
Source	License	Tag
Wikimedia Commons (Cat:United States)	Various	N/A
Historic American Buildings Survey ([1])	P.D.	{{PD-USGov}}
Historic American Engineering Record ([2])	P.D.	{{PD-USGov}}
Historic American Landscapes Survey	P.D	{{PD-USGov}}
National Park Service ([3] and [4])	P.D.	{{PD-USGov-Interior-NPS}}
U.S. Coast Guard ([5])	P.D.	{{PD-USGov-DHS-CG}}
Library of Congress - American Memory ([6])	P.D.	{{LOC-image}}
Library of Congress - Prints and Photographs ([7])	P.D. (not all)	{{LOC-image}}
NOAA ([8])	P.D.	{{PD-USGov-DOC-NOAA}}
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ([9])	P.D.	{{PD-USGov}}
Creative Commons (by,sa) on Flickr ([10])	C.C.	{{cc-by-2.0}}{{cc-by-sa-2.0}}
U.S. Department of Agriculture ([11])	P.D.	{{PD-USGov}}

Some National Park Service webpages include photos that are NPS-owned and are public domain. But the NPS is clear that it uses, with permission, some copyrighted pictures, and those do not go into the public domain just because the NPS uses them. The National Park Service copyright-related policy statement, at http://www.nps.gov/disclaimer.htm states, under Ownership:

"Information presented on this website, unless otherwise indicated, is considered in the public domain. It may may be distributed or copied as is permitted by the law. Not all information on this website has been created or is owned by the NPS. If you wish to use any non-NPS material, you must seek permission directly from the owning (or holding) sources."

Until late 2009 or early 2010, there was an ERRONEOUS message in the NPS Focus computer system that states "Public domain" for all photographs, whether they are or not. That has since been changed to show "Public access". Any photo that gives credit to a photographer, a state employee, or any other non-Federal organization is not in the public domain and thus cannot be used on Wikipedia without consent from the photographer. It is up to users, not the NPS, to check for copyright status of any photos. Any photo that is listed as being from the "National Register Collection", however, is believed to be owned by the NPS and thus in the public domain. Only images in the public domain (or another accepted license Click here for more information) may be added to articles. Any other images will be removed. The table to the right includes several sources that may contain public domain images about NRHP listings.

To avoid any copyright problems, you may simply take photos yourself if you live or travel in the area of a property listed on the NRHP or request that other editors take pictures if they come in contact with them. If you or any other editor takes the photograph, the photographer has exclusive rights to the copyright status of the photograph and must release it into the public domain or under an acceptable license in order to use it in a Wikipedia articles.

It is also possible that the images you need already exist on Wikipedia's partner site Wikimedia Commons. You can look through Commons:Category:National Register of Historic Places or categories specific to the state or region in which the NRHP listing is located to find useful images.

Courthouse photos

The United States Department of Agriculture has a collection of 328 courthouse photographs taken by Calvin Beale. The Federal Judicial Center has nearly six hundred photographs of historic federal courthouses.

Other resources

NRHP.COM

National Register of Historic Places.COM is a private website mirroring the NRHP's NRIS database. It gives listings by state and division within state (counties, parishes, etc.). This is often referred to by the project as "NRHP.COM". It is known to contain systematic errors, however, such as giving areas of historic districts that are 10x larger than correct and including an erroneous listing date for properties that have actually been de-listed on that date. It is not recommended for use in Wikipedia citations, but can be a handy source for a site's reference number or other info.

Historic Places Database

Another private source of information, also mostly a mirror to the NRIS database, is Historic Places Database. It may give listing as well as delisting dates.

Weekly announcement listings

Every Friday, the National Park Service publishes a new weekly list outlining all actions on the National Register for the prior week(s), including additions, removals, boundary increases and decreases, additional documentation, approvals of multiple property submissions (MPS), determinations of eligibility, and designations of NHLs. The weekly list (and all previous lists) can be found here. Since July 2008, the weekly update has included one featured property, listed here.

If the listing date for the property is not known, a quick way to find it is to Google the name of the property and append "site:www.nps.gov". For example, when looking for information on Beth Hamedrash Hagadol, search Google for "Beth Hamedrash Hagadol" site:www.nps.gov, which turns up the relevant weekly announcement. For older NRHP listings (pre-1995), the announcements are in pdf format and thus not searchable. For these properties, you will have to manually search through the yearly listings.

Note: a real advantage of such searches is that they can turn up announcements of additional documentation packages provided for a site. Just searching NRIS and NPS Focus will not reveal the availability of these. To obtain, you may then have to request the additional documentation from the National Register directly. The additional documentation might or might not also appear in the PDF files for the site that might be available via the NPS Focus system.

National Park Service Inventory

The National Park Service has an inventory of historic park structures with pictures at List of Classified Structures.

GSA database

Multiple resources regarding historic federal government buildings under General Services Administration management may be found at Historic Buildings, which can be searched and sorted by state, architect, and other attributes.

HABS and HAER

The Historic American Buildings Survey and the Historic American Engineering Record provide photos and sometimes substantial text records for many sites that are NRHPs.

State and territory specific resources

As stated above, there are several states in which all of the NRHP nomination documents are available through the Focus database. Although many states are not included in this list, there are state-level databases that include the documents, as well as other helpful information. The NRHP website includes this list of links to state and territory specific State Historic Preservations Offices (SHPOs). Other tools are listed below. Click on the desired state in the following index table to jump straight to available tools for that state. States in bold have almost all nomination documents in Focus (although there may still be a link to other resources).

Alabama – Alaska – American Samoa – Arizona – Arkansas – California – Colorado – Connecticut – Delaware – District of Columbia – Federated States of Micronesia – Florida – Georgia – Guam – Hawaii – Idaho – Illinois – Indiana – Iowa – Kansas – Kentucky – Louisiana – Maine – Marshall Islands – Maryland – Massachusetts – Michigan – Minnesota – Mississippi – Missouri – Montana – Nebraska – Nevada – New Hampshire – New Jersey – New Mexico – New York – North Carolina – North Dakota – Northern Marianas Islands – Ohio – Oklahoma – Oregon – Pennsylvania – Puerto Rico – Rhode Island – South Carolina – South Dakota – Tennessee – Texas – U.S. Minor Islands – U.S. Virgin Islands – Utah – Vermont – Virginia – Washington – West Virginia – Wisconsin – Wyoming

Alabama

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.
• An index linking to NRHP site summaries in PDF format may be found at the Alabama Historical Commission. It currently only contains summaries from counties beginning with the letter "W", with new counties being added periodically. A separate Alabama Historical Commission index covers sites on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage, many of which are also listed on the NRHP.

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Alaska

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.

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Arizona

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.

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Arkansas

• A searchable database here provides access to National Register summaries in considerable detail. No on-line copies of nominating documents available, but the summaries appear to quote the nomination forms. A similar database exists for the Arkansas Register of Historic Places.

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California

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.
• An index linking to concise site summaries may be found at the California Office of Historic Preservation. It includes NRHP and California state registry sites, but the written summaries are variable in quality.
• Beachcalifornia.com has summaries of state historical landmarks, including NRHP properties.

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Colorado

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.
• An index linking to concise site summaries may be found at the Colorado Historical Society. It includes NRHP and Colorado state registry sites.
• There are summaries and PDF copies of some of the NRHP nomination documents available from www.historycolorado.org.
• A list of all sites removed from the National Register can be found here

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Connecticut

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.
• Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation - Diverse resources on historic preservation in the state. I've found information on some NRHP listings in their newsletter (but to find things, you may need to use Google with "site:cttrust.org"). See this page for information on state and local historic designations and their relationship to the NRHP.
• Historic Buildings of Connecticut - Descriptions and photos of many historic properties in the state, many of which are on the National Register or are contributing properties in historic districts.

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Delaware

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.
• Information about Delaware state-owned sites available at http://history.delaware.gov/museums/historic_sites.shtml.

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District of Columbia

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.

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Florida

• Information about Florida Historic Places is available at http://www.flheritage.com/facts/reports/places/index.cfm. That's a county-by-county index, which leads towards separate pages with photos about each historic site.

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Georgia

• The state historic preservation office website at http://georgiashpo.org/ has information about historic preservation in the state, including profiles of recent National Register listings.
• GNAHRGIS, Georgia's Natural, Archaeological, and Historic Resources GIS, is a searchable database at https://www.gnahrgis.org
• State historic sites are listed at http://www.exploresouthernhistory.com/georgia.html

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Hawaii

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.
• The State Historic Preservation Division's webite has a list by county of sites, some of which are not yet on the National Register. In each table is a "tax map key" which can be used to find detailed maps.
• The University of Hawaii has an on-line archive of many historic documents including articles from the Hawaiian Journal of History.
• The {{Hawaiian Dictionaries}} template provides access to several databases maintained by the University of Hawaii that include historical information on place names, 19th-century land ownership and government records

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Idaho

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Illinois

• This site, HARGIS, provides scanned copies of the NRHP text documents. The easiest way to find a property is to locate its marker on the map; NRHP-listed properties are marked with red triangles, while other categories of properties have other colors. Simply hover your cursor (making sure to select the hand-shaped tool in the top left) over a red triangle and click the "View Property Information Record" link. This will provide basic data about the site and likely a photo and a link to the nomination form. Alternatively, you can search for a property with a query. Start by clicking the binoculars at the top of the screen, immediately under the word "Information" in "Historic Architectural Resources Geographic Information System". This will provide a box with several different types of searches, ranging from the simple to the complex.

• HARGIS gives each property a six-digit reference number that is unrelated to its NRIS reference number; these numbers are often grouped geographically, with a group of consecutive numbers frequently being assigned to a group of properties in a single county. These numbers are useful for URLs: the Property Information Record for each property has a URL of http://gis.hpa.state.il.us/hargis/reports/PropertyInformationReport.aspx?refnum=xxxxxx (where the reference number replaces the xxxxxx), and the nomination form will be http://ihpa.greatarc.com/pdfs/xxxxxx.pdf. For example, the Farm Creek Section's Property Information Report is located at http://gis.hpa.state.il.us/hargis/reports/PropertyInformationReport.aspx?refnum=200894, and its nomination appears at http://ihpa.greatarc.com/pdfs/200894.pdf.

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Indiana

• The State Department of Natural Resources' Division of Historic Preservation & Archaeology contains useful links.
  • Complete nomination forms for most sites are available through the Indiana State Historic Architectural and Archaeological Research Database (SHAARD) system. At https://secure.in.gov/apps/dnr/shaard/welcome.html, select "Enter as a guest". For "Survey type", select pull-down option "National Register", then get to a search screen where you can find properties by county or title of property (in the "Historic name" field). These provide little information other than what the NRIS gives, but almost all have a digitized nomination form in PDF.
  • Currently pending, and recent previous, applications for NRHP status are available at http://www.in.gov/dnr/historic/2773.htm.
• Indiana Landmarks has surveyed most of the counties in the state for historic properties; each county's results are available in a book known as its Interim Report. Many of these books are freely viewable online; while the districts defined in these reports often aren't 100% equivalent to the National Register districts of the same names, these reports are highly useful. See how the Bloomington book is used at Steele Dunning Historic District for an example of how much detail can be gained from these books.

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Kansas

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.
• The Kansas State Historical Society website on NRHP listings can be searched by county or otherwise. It provides NRHP nominations on-line for some or all sites.

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Kentucky

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.
• Locations of National Register properties in Kentucky in Indiana are pinpointed at http://www.metromapper.org/index-historic.php.

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Louisiana

• This search site provides a lot of information. Louisiana documents about NRHP places are searchable here and include links to PDF summaries, photos, and maps. The PDF summaries may be multiple page documents which may be based upon, or basis for, the NRHP nomination documents of the properties. However, these summaries omit author, date, and other information that would improve them as citable references, so obtaining the full NRHP nomination documents from the National Register is still recommended.

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Maine

• The Maine Historical Preservation Commission website contains a list of properties "recently added" to the register. There is also an archive which lists sites listed after about 2005. The site contains only short summaries, no nomination documents.

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Maryland

• The Maryland Historical Trust searchable website now provides NRHP nomination forms for all jurisdictions in Maryland except Baltimore City. The site also includes information on all sites on the Maryland Historical Register. Load times for NRHP forms can be slow; the site appears to work better using Internet Explorer. It is not known if it is possible to generate a permanent link to the NRHP nomination documents.

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Massachusetts

• The Massachusetts Cultural Resources Information System (MACRIS) is the state's database of NRHP and state historic sites. The state has been digitizing its records, and a reasonable number of NRHP nomination forms and other documents are available. This is a work in progress, and the public database is updated fairly regularly.

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Michigan

• A searchable database here leads to fairly detailed summaries of NRHP properties.

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Minnesota

• This search screen on NRHPs, at Minnesota Historical Society produces useful information. If the Reference number is known, enter it in place of the 'xxxxxxxx' at http://nrhp.mnhs.org/NRDetails.cfm?NPSNum=xxxxxxxx. Also there is a 2003 book The National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota by Mary Ann Nord available.

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Mississippi

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.
• All NRHP nomination forms are online at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History website here. Select the desired city or county, and a list of all sites on the register will appear. Clicking on the name of an individual property leads to a page with skeletal information about the building/site, including a link to view the National Register nomination. This database also includes nomination forms of delisted properties, something which Focus does not provide.

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Missouri

• NRHP applications are all online. Individual county lists of NRHP sites are available at Missouri National Register Listings page.
• See http://www.dnr.mo.gov/shpo/national.htm for Missouri NRHP information.

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Montana

• The Montana Memory Project has NRHP nomination forms from 2006 onward.

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Nebraska

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.
• An index linking to concise site summaries may be found at the Nebraska State Historical Society. It shows 10 regions for the state's 93 counties. One level higher is this NRHP general menu. Full NRHP nomination documents are available for some counties. The Nebraska State Historical Society may provide NRHP documents for other sites if contacted directly.
• Photos in Nebraska are more commonly available than in most other states, in already existing Commons categories of photos corresponding to many individual NRHP listings, even where there is not yet an individual wikipedia article (mostly courtesy of commons/wikipedia contributor Ammodramus - thanks!). Be sure to browse within Commons:Category:National Register of Historic Places in Nebraska by county to find these, and consider adding an External link such as "More photos of the Dry Valley church and cemetery at Wikimedia Commons", as included in the Dry Valley Church and Cemetery NRHP article.

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Nevada

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.
• The State Historic Preservation Office provides lists of the NRHPs and of Nevada state historic sites which provide some location information that is additional to what is available in the NRIS system.

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New Hampshire

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.

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New Jersey

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.
• The New Jersey state historic preservation office only publishes basic lists of registrations here. Although there are no nomination forms available there, these listings are useful for identifying listings (usually districts) that cross boundaries (are listed in multiple towns, townships, and counties).

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New Mexico

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New York

• The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (NYSOPRHP) provides scanned versions of the NRHP text documents, NRHP photos, and NRHP correspondence with owners of properties. The interface requires Java on your computer. In the New York's State and National Registers of Historic Places Document Imaging Project search access screen, you have to select "Basic" and enter Basic criteria such as name "Grahamsville" and county "Sullivan" in the search form, and then click over on the right at RESULTS to get the search to run. Not entirely intuitive. It may be then that a Java icon shows up for a while, and then you typically get a list of the 3 documents available (text, photos, other). Then clicking on one of them, in Firefox at least, you get a new browser window with a wide but short scrollable window showing about one vertical inch of the scanned document. You can then choose to click on the printer icon and print to a PDF file, in order to save it on your computer and to read it more conveniently. (If you do not already have a PDF writer on your computer, you can download a free one at www.pdf995.com). The new browser window shows a hard URL that can be used to provide a hard link from a Wikipedia article to a specific file, such as Grahamsville Historic District NRHP text for the article Grahamsville Historic District. An example footnote reference linking the separate text, photos, and correspondence documents for one site, is as follows:

Formatting of documents available at New York State's OPRHP

Documents available at NYS OPRHP may be footnoted as here, for example: In 1992 the vessel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
References

Here is a cut-and-paste ready-to-fill-in sample reference:

<ref name="NysNrhpNom">{{cite web
|last=__|first=__
|title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: __
|url=http://www.oprhp.state.ny.us/hpimaging/hp_view.asp?GroupView=__
|date=__, 19__|accessdate=2010-07-__
|publisher=[[New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation]]}}
[http://www.oprhp.state.ny.us/hpimaging/hp_view.asp?GroupView=__ ''Accompanying __ photos, exterior and interior, from 19__'']</ref>

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North Carolina

• The North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office has a large amount of NRHP nomination forms handily linked in a single linked PDF form here, and all Multiple Property Submission forms in a single linked PDF here.

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North Dakota

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.

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Ohio

• A state-wide 1999 listing of NRHP places, the Ohio Historic Places Dictionary should be consulted and referenced if you get access to information on a given NRHP. Organized by county, then alphabetical. Preview access is seemingly randomized, so you might or might not get to the page you need; as well, some sites listed before 1999 are omitted without explanation, including a large chunk in the "L" counties. See usage in Harshaville Covered Bridge. Copy-paste and adapt (change at least the page number) the following reference:

<ref name=OHPD>{{cite web|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=YfvhVln0D20C&pg=GBS.PA419.w.1.2.0.1#v=onepage&q&f=false |title=Ohio Historic Places Dictionary, Volume 2 |date=1999 |publisher=Somerset Publishers, Inc.|editor=Lorrie K. Owen |page=3}}</ref>

• The Ohio Historical Society provides very basic data (often little or nothing more than the NRIS) and sometimes a picture. Nomination forms in PDF are available, but a small price must be paid.

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Oklahoma

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.
• The Oklahoma Historical Society provides illustrated summaries of NRHP properties, including MPS listings. Summaries are given for restricted address sites, and others have nomination forms available for download for free.

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Oregon

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.
• The Oregon Historic Sites Database is under development, and is stated to eventually include copies of NRHP documents. It includes database texts of some length for many properties but not full NRHP documents. Full PDF nomination documents/photos and HTML summaries for the most recent listings in the state are here — in theory it covers only the most recent 6 months, though what's up there as of today goes back over a year.

See also:

• More recent listings at state site
• the University of Oregon
• Boundless Oregon (note images are not public domain)
• State Parks Department listings
• Oregon Historic Sites Database
• Newspapers: Portland Tribune (which includes the other local Pamplin papers in their search), The Oregonian (includes the Hillsboro Argus too, but with both only goes back a year or two), and rarely Willamette Week.
• Other, Google Books/News, a regular search, maybe Oregon Home magazine, and if near a library:
• Norman, James B., Jr. (1991), Portland's Architectural Heritage: National Register Properties of the Portland Metropolitan Area, Oregon Historical Society Press, ISBN 0-87595-241-0{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Site of a historic sites consultant here, note The main part of her site has some links, but if you manipulate the URL on the first item you can go through the other listings (i.e. change the 43 to 42 to 41, etc.). Some items outdated, e.g. a draft NRHP doc when a final NRHP doc will have been completed by now.

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Pennsylvania

• The Cultural Resources Geographic Information System (CRGIS), which replaced the ARCH database, provides scanned copies of NRHP documents. Large amounts of data are available with the guest password and account provided by the site. To use the system at all seems to require that you install an Adobe SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) Viewer software on your computer. If/when it is working for you, the fastest way to find sites in the CRGIS system is to use the "Ask REGIS" feature to either search by county, name, architect, historic function, etc. In at least some cases such as for Northumberland Historic District, the scanning is incomplete (deliberately?).

Step-by-step tips for using CRGIS:

1. Use Microsoft Internet Explorer (not Mozilla Firefox) as browser.
2. Go to start screen at https://www.dot7.state.pa.us/ce/SelectWelcome.asp
3. Scroll down to "To get started, click on the CRGIS logo". Click on it.
4. At "CRGIS Welcome and Login" page, note the instructions are to use "Public" and "Public" as userid and password. Note also that it notes "Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 or greater is required", that "An ActiveX control is used to build maps. Click here to see if you have it installed on your machine", that "It is recommended that your screen resolution be set to 1024 x 768 or better" and that "Popup boxes are extensively used on this site. Your browser MUST be configured to accept popup boxes for CRGIS to be able to function." Click on "Login".
5. It may be that nothing happens. Going back one step and checking on the ActiveX control may reveal that ActiveX is not installed on your PC, but you may be given no directions where you can get it. (Can any other editor help improve the instructions here? At what URL could one try to get the needed ActiveX control? )
6. You may be confronted with a message requesting that a page be closed, which you may just say No to.
7. In the login process, give "Public" and "Public" as userid and password where needed. Accept terms for use.
8. In the "Cultural Resources GIS" page in a new window that pops up, scroll down to "Ask REGis" button. Click on it.
9. In yet another new popup window, you may search for specific properties. You could select "Where?" or "When?" to find properties by county or otherwise, but probably selecting "What else?" works quickest for finding a given place. In the screen that pops up, select "Historic name" from the pulldown menu and enter part of the name of the place, so it will implement a search on "where historic name includes" namepart. You can use the second field to specify only NRHP sites (useful as the CRGIS system also includes most Eligible-but-not-listed and also Ineligible buildings) by clicking "National Register Status" and then clicking "Listed".
10. When finished, click "Search Now" and results should appear. Clicking or double-clicking on a result will bring up another popup where the link to the nomination form, as well other relevant documents, can be found. (Note, selecting individual entries by using the checkbox, and then selecting "Map Selected" above will bring up a map, but will not bring you to the documents.) For example, the results window for "Bailey Covered Bridge" in Washington County, Pennsylvania provides a link to NR form "H050859_01H.pdf".
11. Click on the NR form link, to bring up an Adobe Acrobat window showing the PDF document. The URL of the specific document appears and can be used in Wikipedia references.
12. To do another search, you have to click the "Search For" tab (the browser's "Back" button doesn't work here).

Formatting of references for documents that were available at Pennsylvania's ARCH system

For Cogan House Covered Bridge, its ARCH footnote includes an accessdate but note the NRHP document it includes is itself undated (because no date appears in the document),

For Worlds End State Park, the ARCH footnote includes a Pennsylvania doc rather than one on NRHP form, and there is a document date.

For Millersburg Ferry, the ARCH footnote includes 3 PDF files (one NRHP text and two accompanying maps).

References

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Puerto Rico

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.

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Rhode Island

• The Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission has a variety of online resources. There is a series of survey publications, produced a number of years ago, that documented the history of each community, then-existing NRHP listings, and potentially listable properties. There's also a state database of listed properties (including contributing properties in HDs) and a collection of information on pending nominations. A majority of the nomination forms can be found in pdf format, linked from this list.

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South Carolina

• The South Carolina Department of Archives and History provides summaries, photos, and scanned PDF files of NRHP nominations for nearly all NRHPs. Some archeological sites are not given. They also have copies of National Register Multiple Property Submissions (MPS) and some other documents available online.

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South Dakota

• The South Dakota State Historical Society has a handful of historic district and multiple property submission documents available online.

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Tennessee

• The state's Department of Environment and Conservation (parent agency of the Tennessee Historic Commission) provides NRHP documents for at least some NRHP sites on-line. The Historic Commission's main NRHP page has some listings, and others are listed in press releases, for example these 12 recent ones here, nine more recent ones here, and this list from December 2008. The Historic Commission seems to abandon its old content when new content is added, but old content can be found on old versions of http://tennessee.gov/environment/hist/federal/nrhist1.shtml saved at archive.org.
• Information about properties in Rutherford County is available in a 2005 newsletter of the county historical society.
• Also there is a "Tennessee Encyclopedia on History and Culture" on-line, search here sponsored by the Tennessee Historical Society, which has articles that may be useful as references and/or external links.

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Texas

• Data has been found on the Texas Historical Commission's FTP server ftp://ftp.thc.state.tx.us. Most NRHP registration forms are listed in the /nr_program/ directory.
• Summary information and perhaps the text from the NRHP documents (but incomplete, clearly lacking sections), is available for NRHPs in the Texas Historical Commission's THC Atlas system.
• The Handbook of Texas [12] provides summaries and some detailed histories of historic sites. Note in citing Handbook of Texas, most articles have individual authors to credit; the Fort Concho Wikipedia article contains an example footnote reference giving such credit.

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Utah

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.
• The Utah State History site has descriptions, photos, and PDFs for the most recent Utah additions to the NRHP (which are usually not at Focus yet).

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Vermont

• The state government has some National Register nomination forms online at this page.
• Short descriptions of many of the state's historic districts are on this page.
• The Vermont Historical Society may be helpful as a resource; see its list of the state's ~200 local historical societies, some of which have weblinks.

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Virginia

• NRHP nomination PDFs and other materials are available, by county and independent city, for most all (but not archeological site ones) at the Virginia Landmarks Registry here. These often include a full NRHP nomination document, a webpage of accompanying photos, and sometimes a webpage with one or more maps. All their sites are listed in their Register Master List, which is useful sometimes for establishing which city or county an archeological site is located in, for sure.

Copy-paste and adapt:

<ref name=nrhpdocVAdhr>{{cite web|url=__ |title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: __ |author=__ |date=__ |publisher=Virginia Department of Historic Resources}} and [__ accompanying photos] and [__ accompanying map]</ref>

(Replace the __'s by URLs or by text)

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Washington

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.
• The WISAARD GIS system provides a database, including PDFs of nominations. It only works with Internet Explorer and requires that pop-ups be enabled. The map interface is clunky and requires a lot of zooming; it works if you're patient and have some idea of Washington geography and the site you're looking for.

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West Virginia

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.
• The West Virginia Division of Culture and History provides scanned PDFs of applications sorted by county.

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Wisconsin

• The Wisconsin Historical Society provides property records for NRHP-listed properties.

Wyoming

• NRHP nomination documents available online for almost all listings; see #NPS Focus above.
• The Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office provides summaries of each site.

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Geographic help

• Map locator - {{Location map}}
• Topozone - for finding lat/long of various places
• Coordinates conversion: to convert between Degrees-Minutes-Seconds format vs. Decimal format here is one tool.

Coordinates issues

North American Datum shift between NAD27 and NAD83

Coordinates returned by the NRIS may not always be spot on. In many cases, coordinates of NRHP listings were traced out on old U.S. Geological Survey quadrant maps which still followed the North American Datum of 1927. In 1983 there was a world-wide adjustment of all geographic coordinates, to the current system used now by all current geolocation and maps providers. This shift changed coordinates in a majority of the U.S.; only the area near Chicago was unchanged. Older NRHP listings' coordinates are more than likely a bit off, with the error increasing the farther one travels from Chicago. Newer nominations are more often be more accurate.

While many coordinates issues can be traced to the above shift, there are sometimes outright typos or other errors in coordinates that appear in NRIS. Coordinates for historic districts or plantations or other large properties are often at a calculated geocenter of the corner points of the area, when pointing to the main plantation house may be more desirable. The project welcomes corrections of NRIS coordinates, but our members do not actively collect reports of these issues. All other errors in NRIS data should be brought up here.

These links may help you identify correct coordinates to include into the infobox:

• 1a. If a street address is available, use Google maps to bring up a satellite view of the property.
• 1b. Or use this UTM coordinates converter to latitude&longitude to get approximate location based on UTM info in the NRHP registration document. Enter degrees-minutes-seconds coordinates into infobox fields and save article. Then bring the Google satellite view up by clicking on those coordinates in this article.
• 2. In another window, bring up Geolocator tool, useful to zero in on exact building in its satellite view. Having the Google map satellite view in other window helps you find the location. Follow geolocator's instructions to alt-click and get exact coordinates.
• 3. Revise the article's coordinates to the geolocator's more precise coordinates.

Tools and other useful links

• Main tools page: toolserver.org
• Reflinks - Edits bare references - adds title/dates etc. to bare references
• Checklinks - Edit and repair external links
• Dab solver - Quickly resolve ambiguous links.
• Peer reviewer - Provides hints and suggestion to improving articles.
• At the WikiProject NRHP level, one can click on the Stub X High cell in the Collaboration and review section of the main project page. The catscan tool allows one to find the High importance stubs in a given state, e.g. p=3&go=Scan&format=html&userlang=en this application of catscan to NRHP-rated High importance articles that are rated stub by Mississippi. You have to figure out which categories' intersection will give you what you want. That catscan used Talk page categories of WikiProject NRHP and of WikiProject Mississippi. This catscan application uses mainspace categories Category:National Historic Landmarks in Mississippi and Category:Mississippi Registered Historic Place stubs to get the same or similar articles.

Other useful links include:

• National Historic Landmarks Program - list of National Historic Landmarks
• National Register of Historic Places home page
• National Register of Historic Places.COM - a private website echoing the NRHP's NRIS database, giving listings by state and division within state (counties, parishes, etc.). This is often referred to as "NRHP.COM". It is known to contain systematic errors, due to its programmer(s) not understanding some important nuances of the NRIS database. For example, it gives areas of historic districts that are 10x larger than correct. For another example, it includes as NRHP-listed on a given date, places that were in fact de-listed on that date. It also includes a few locations that were never approved and are still marked "Pending/listed."
• All WikiProject sub-pages

See also

• Frequently asked questions (shortcut WP:NRHPFAQ)
• NRHP style guide for creating new articles (shortcut WP:NRHPMOS)
• WP:NRHP info issues, recorded correspondence with the National Register about facts and documents for specific places
• WP:NHL info issues, similar, about subset of NRHPs that are National Historic Landmarks only