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Shenandoah National Park press release
For Immediate Release For additional information contact
Reed Engle @ (540) 999-3495
PUBLIC READING ROOM OPENS JUNE 5
Shenandoah National Park, VA--Shenandoah National Park Superintendent
Douglas K. Morris announced today that construction is nearing
completion and the public reading room in the building that houses
Park archives will open on June 5, 2001.
According to Morris, "The completion of the reading room addition is a
milestone in a six-year project to establish a professional museum
management program at Shenandoah National Park."
Prior to 1994 Park archival records and museum objects were housed in
over seven different locations with no environmental controls or
security. None of the collections were cataloged. Since 1995 the Park,
using funds made available through the Recreation Fee Demonstration
Program and special funding provided by the National Park Service's
Museum Program Office, has spent over $500,000 to construct a
state-of-the-art curatorial storage facility and to process and
catalog over 350,000 records and museum objects, approximately 70% of
the Park's collection. The Park has also obtained funding to hire a
permanent archival staff: Harry Heiss, Archivist, and Alison Kelly,
Archival Technician.
The collections' primary focus is on the establishment and subsequent
development of Shenandoah National Park. Its holdings include Park
resource management records documenting the creation and development
of the Park from 1931 to 1965 and duplicate copies of Commonwealth of
Virginia land records relating to the survey, appraisal, and
condemnation of privately owned property before establishment of the
Park . The Park also has cataloged the personal papers of Ferdinand
Zerkel and Darwin Lambert and various assembled collections
specifically related to the Civilian Conservation Corps, Skyland
Resort, and former President Herbert Hoover's Rapidan Camp (for many
years referred to as Camp Hoover). The collections contain no known
family or public records dating prior to 1924 with the exception of
Skyland Resort materials. Genealogical records are only those
incidentally documented by the Commonwealth of Virginia in the 1927
property appraisals and in a few cases by family letters to the Park
dated after 1935 and included in Park resource management records.
Within the next few weeks, copies of finding aids to cataloged Park
archival collections will be available in local libraries.
In order to continue making progress in cataloging the remaining
collections, the reading room will be open to staff and the public by
appointment only Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 8:30 a.m - 12:00 noon and
1:00 p.m.- 4:00 p.m. Walk-in requests will not be honored until the
collections are fully cataloged. Appointments may be made after May
21, 2001, by telephone at (540) 999-3494, by FAX at (540) 999-3493 or
by email at SHEN_Archives@nps.gov. Requests for information may
continue to be made without a visit to the Park archives. Appointments
and requests for information will be handled in the order in which
they are received.
* * * * *
Prepared 5/14/01
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