About National Historical Register

National Historical Register is an independent, privately run guide. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated on behalf of the National Park Service, the US Department of the Interior, the National Register of Historic Places, or any State Historic Preservation Office.

What this site is for

The National Register of Historic Places lists about 95,000 properties, districts and sites. The official sources tell you that something is listed; they rarely tell you, in readable form, why, or what listing means if you own, buy or visit the place. The nomination documents that answer those questions are scanned PDFs in the National Archives, often typewritten and forty years old.

This site puts a readable page on top of each listing: the nomination summarised in plain English (and clearly labelled as machine-generated, with a link to the source), a photo with its licence, a map, nearby listings, and practical notes on tax credits, plaques and renovation rules. It also offers an address lookup so anyone can check a property in seconds.

Editor

John Harrison is the pen name of the site's editor, who writes and signs the guides, sets the editorial and data policies and reviews machine-generated text that readers report. A pen name is used so that the site is judged on its sources and corrections rather than on a byline; every factual claim on a property page links to the public record it came from. Contact and corrections: see the editorial policy.

How it is funded

At launch, it is not. The plan, in order: clearly labelled referrals to third-party plaque makers and preservation professionals, travel affiliate links on itinerary pages, and later a paid tier of the data API. Private homeowners are never charged to be listed or to "enhance" their page, and nothing is sold under the site's own name that could be mistaken for an official registration, certificate or plaque.

Corrections

Every property page links to its sources so you can check them. If a summary misstates a fact, or a photo shows the wrong building, see the editorial policy for how to report it; corrections are made to the data, so they persist through rebuilds.

Name

"National Historical Register" is a common way people misname the National Register of Historic Places. We use it as a brand for an independent guide and nowhere imply that we are the Register. See Not affiliated.