THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the First Lady

             First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton Announces 
                1999 Historic Preservation Fund Grants
                      To Save America's Treasures
          Kicks Off "Save America's Treasures" Southwest Tour
                            The White House
                              May 19, 1999

Today First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton announced the recipients of the 1999 Historic Preservation Fund Grants to "Save America's Treasures." Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt and National Park Service Director Robert Stanton joined Mrs. Clinton at the White House ceremony. The grants will help to preserve the nation's heritage and culture for future generations and build on the efforts of the White House Millennium Council to commemorate the turn of the millennium by "Honoring the Past and Imagining the Future." Mrs. Clinton announced the grants before embarking on a "Save America's Treasures" tour of the Southwest region.

Saving America's Treasures:

• The Federal grants are one component of the Save America's Treasures program. Too many of the historic buildings, sites, monuments, objects and archival documents that tell America's story are deteriorating, yet they are not being preserved because of lack of resources or organized interest in the community. President Clinton proposed funding to Save America's Treasures in his Fiscal Year 1999 budget and Congress approved $30 million in Federal grants to address the most urgent preservation needs of the nation's most significant historic sights and collections. The National Park Service, at the Department of the Interior administers the grants.
• Save America's Treasures is a public-private partnership between the White House Millennium Council and the National Trust for Historic Preservation that is dedicated to the celebration and preservation of our nation's historic and cultural legacy. The National Trust -- a national nonprofit preservation organization -- has formed a Millennium Committee to Save America's Treasures, made up of individuals, foundations, and corporations. The First Lady serves as honorary chair of the Committee.

Honoring the Past and Imagining the Future:

• The Grants were awarded to twelve Federal agencies for 62 projects in 24 states, the District of Columbia and the Midway Islands. The projects range from the Thomas Jefferson papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society to Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin in Wisconsin; from the historic Vail Ranch House in Arizona, to Ebenezer Baptist Church (Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site) in Georgia; from the National Film Preservation Foundation's "Saving the Silents" project, to the ancient Cliff Dwellings of Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. The sixty-two projects funded by the grants reflect the diverse cultures and the many stories that comprise America, which must not be lost as we end this century and enter a new millennium.
• Agencies under the auspices of the Interior Appropriations bill were eligible to submit urgent Federal projects, or apply on behalf of other regional sites or collections that fit the criteria of the National Park Service. A panel of five experts, representing preservation and conservation disciplines, from non-competing Federal agencies reviewed the applications and made recommendations for funding to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who then consulted with the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations and the White House Millennium Council. All of the projects met the standards of importance, urgency, educational value, and ability to complete the preservation work.
• By law, each award requires a dollar-for-dollar non-Federal match. A large number of states, localities, corporations, foundations and others who value our shared heritage have already pledged to support these important projects through financial contributions, donations and in-kind services.

The "Save America's Treasures" Tour of the Southwest Region:

• As part of the ongoing effort to bring attention to America's national treasures and ensure their survival into the next century, today the First Lady will begin a four-day "Save America's Treasures" tour of America's national treasures located in the Southwest region Stops along the four day journey will include sites such as Grand Canyon National Park; Lowell Observatory where Pluto was discovered; the Acoma Pueblo, one of the oldest continuously inhabited villages in the United States; the Southwestern Pieta, an important sculpture representing Mexican-American heritage in one of Albuquerque's oldest neighborhoods; and Mesa Verde National Park.

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