To assist in preparing a treatment plan and in estimating costs, this document provides standards for treatment of historic resources eligible for inclusion in the National Register at a state or local level of significance.

Levels of Significance

Within the framework of the National Register, the level of significance is defined as the geographic magnitude or scope of a property's historical significance and can be national, state, or local. Local significance is defined as the importance of a property to the history of its community, such as a town, city, or county. Likewise, state significance refers to the importance of a resource to the history of the state in which it is located. The following documentation standards are specific to historic resources eligible to the National Register at the local or state level of significance.
 

Resource Categories

For the purposes of this document, a historic resource is defined as a historic district, building, site, structure, or object; specifically, any such resource that is listed or eligible for listing in the National or State Register of Historic Places (See National Register Bulletin 15, How to Apply the National Register Criteria for Evaluation, for National Register eligibility criteria).  The following is a partial listing of historic resource types that might be subjected to the level of documentation described herein:

District—a geographically definable area, urban or rural, possessing a significant concentration, linkage, or continuity of sites, buildings, structures, or objects united historically or aesthetically by plan or physical development; may also comprise individual elements separated geographically but linked by association or history. Examples of historic districts are mining sites with multiple resources, including buildings and equipment; farms and ranches; and various linear resources, such as water systems and railroads.

Building—a structure enclosing a space and providing protection from the elements and that shelters some form of human activity; typically includes walls, a roof, and other components. Commercial buildings may include banks, breweries, casinos, factories, foundries, garages, hangars, laundries, mortuaries, office buildings, railroad stations, blacksmith's shops, stores, theaters, and warehouses; residential types may be single family dwellings, duplexes, apartment buildings, barracks, dormitories, hotels, bunkhouses, quarters, shacks, and shanties; institutional buildings may be academies, amphitheaters, armories, arsenals, asylums, aviaries, Capitols and other governmental buildings, churches, courthouses, fortifications, hospitals, jails, libraries, museums, post offices, and schools; agricultural and rural buildings may be barns, blinds, cellars, kennels, pole structures, Quonset huts, sheds, stables, smokehouses, and storehouses.

Site—location of a significant event, a historic occupation or activity, or building or structure, whether standing, ruined, or vanished, where the location itself possesses significance independent of the value of any existing structure at the location. Examples of such a resource include a battlefield, a farm, or a ranch.

Structure—any kind of human construction; often used to refer to an engineering work, as opposed to a building, constructed for purposes other than to provide shelter. Examples of structures include aqueducts, blast furnaces, bridges, cisterns, canals, dams, fences, fortifications, flumes, railroad turntables, reservoirs, root cellars, silos, snow sheds, spring houses, stamp mills and other mining equipment, water tanks, viaducts, wellheads, and windmills.

Object—a material thing of functional, aesthetic, cultural, historical, or scientific value; typically primarily artistic in nature or relatively small in scale and simply constructed; may be, by nature or design, movable yet related to a specific setting or environment. Examples include airplanes, boats, boundary markers, head stones, mile posts, monuments, railroad engines, sculptures, statuary, or steam engines.

Linear Features—are long, narrow works of human construction, which may be classified by the National Register as structures, districts, or sites. Examples of linear features include canals, ditches, fences, flumes, roads and trails, railroad tracks or roadbeds, walls, or water systems.

Properties Suffering Loss of Integrity—where there is an impaired authenticity of a property's historic identity. Examples of properties that have lost integrity, but nevertheless warrant documentation include structures moved, reconstructed, or altered; portions of linear features of which other portions remain intact; minor elements of a complex, unless architecturally distinctive; ruins, collapsed structures, or shells of structures, which may be eligible for the National Register because of their historical importance or associations, but that have little structural/architectural interest and/or integrity.
 

Documentation Standards

The following documentation standards apply to the classes of historical properties defined above. In order to satisfy the documentation requirements for historic properties eligible for the National Register at the local or state level of significance, a report detailing the historical context and significance of the property, and architectural and engineering documentation, including description, plans and photographs of the property, must be submitted. The requirements for these elements are as follows:

Historical Documentation—is a detailed record of the historical context and significance of a property presented in a report format. Historical documentation will employ appropriate methodology to obtain the desired information. Methods and techniques of historical research should be chosen to obtain needed information in the most efficient manner. Sources will be recorded so that other researchers can verify or locate information discovered during research. Historical research to create documentation uses secondary source materials, archival materials, and primary sources, such as personal records, deed and title books, newspapers, plats, maps, atlases, photographs, vital records, censuses, historical narratives, and interviews with individuals. The historical documentation section should include the following elements:

1) Title Page—should include the title of the report, including the nature and location of the project, the author of the report, the sponsoring institution, association or agency, and the date the report was prepared.

2) Table of Contents—should list report chapters and all subdivisions, including study unit sections. Pagination must be shown in the table of contents.

3) Introduction—should summarize the purpose of the documentation, the eligibility criteria used to evaluate the resource, the level of significance the resource possesses, the reason for the mitigation (i.e., impending threat to the resource), objectives for conducting the historical documentation, the scope of the project, and the agencies involved. A map showing the location of the project must be included.

4) Documentation Methodology—should include an explanation of the procedures used to execute the documentation, including the name of the researcher, date of the research, sources searched, and limitations of the project.

5) Historical Narrative—should provide a full description of the resource(s), a historical context against which significance is assessed, and a comprehensive history of the resource. The following elements should be included in this section:

a) Historical Context—including early settlement, historical overview, and physical development of the project area. The historical context should be guided by the thematic study units identified in the Nevada Comprehensive Preservation Plan (1991).

b) Designers, Engineers, and Builders—including biographical information on architects, landscape architects, engineers, builders and contractors, and other designers who practiced in the project area.

c) Notable People—including biographical information on major figures in the community's history and in the history of the resource being documented.

6. Bibliography—references to secondary sources should indicate author, title, and date of publication. Primary sources should be identified by name, collection identifier, and location. Interviews should be noted including the date and location of the interview, names of both parties.

Architectural and Engineering Documentation—the historic significance of the building, site, structure, or object will be conveyed through description, drawings, photographs, and other materials that comprise documentation. The appropriate level of documentation for properties eligible for the National Register at a local, regional, or state level of significance must include:

1) Narrative description that creates a rough sketch of the building and its site. Describe the building in a logical sequence:  from the ground up, facade by facade, from the exterior to the interior. Include the architectural style, if applicable, exterior and interior features, materials and systems.

2) Photographs with 35mm black-and-white negatives of exterior and interior views of the resource. The exterior should be documented by at least six views including a) the front and one side; b) the rear and one side; c) the front elevation; d) environmental view showing the building as part of its larger landscape; e) major elements of the building, including doors, windows, additions, etc.; and f) details, such as materials and hardware. Interior photographs should yield information about the floor plan. Three or four views should be sufficient to document the significant elements of the interior, unless the resource is large or complex;

3) Reproductions of historic photographs, if available. Provide negatives and 4-x-6" black-and-white photographs with submission;

4) Photocopies of existing drawings or plans (including scale), if available. If permission is required to reproduce historic photographs, plans, maps, or other materials, it is the responsibility of the researcher to obtain proper authorizations.

5) Drawings, site plan, and sketch plan. The site plan must include the resource's orientation in its natural landscape and include the scale and a north arrow. The sketch plan will show the layout and floor plan of the resource, including all associated features. The sketch plan need not be a "measured drawing," but an approximate scale should be included.

6) Location mapsa site location map, on a separate 8.5-x-11-inch sheet, showing the location of the resource and associated properties must be provided. For rural properties, the preferred base map is a 7.5-minute USGS quadrangle. For urban properties, a city street map may be more appropriate. Choose a map scale that will include sufficient area surrounding the resource to show the property in reference to cross streets and/or other local landmarks. All maps must have the resource clearly marked and identified, a north arrow, and the name and date of the map. An Assessor's Parcel Map with the subject property indicated on it may be submitted in addition to the site location map.

7) All photographs, photocopies, and drawings will be labeled on the back in pencil identifying the name of the property, the date rendered, the name of the photographer or renderer, orientation of the photograph or drawing. Photographs should not be pasted, glued, or otherwise adhered to the pages of the report. Please place them in properly-labeled archival jackets.
 

Submission Requirements

The documentation submission must include two copies sent to the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO). Three copies will be required if the resource is located within the boundaries of a Certified Local Government (CLG), i.e., City of Reno, Carson City Historic District, City of Las Vegas, or the Comstock Historic District. The SHPO will distribute the copies to the appropriate repository (see below) and CLG. The repository's copy must include:

• The narrative report of the resource's description, historical context, and significance
• one full set of negatives
• one full set of black-and-white, 4-x-6 photographs in archival jackets
• one copy each of drawings, plans, site plans, sketch plans, etc.

The SHPO's and CLG's copies must include all of the above except the negatives, which will be retained by the repository.

Upon receipt, the SHPO will review the documentation for completeness within 30 days. The SHPO will send its comments to the preparer for action, if needed. Any required changes should be submitted to the SHPO in duplicate (or triplicate, in the case of a CLG). The SHPO will insert the changed sections and forward the final documents to the appropriate repository.
 

Records Storage—Repositories

One copy of each mitigative documentation report will be added to the State's architectural resources inventory and will be available for public inspection at the SHPO, 100 N. Stewart Street, Carson City, NV 89701.

One copy, which will include the original negatives, will be sent to one of the following repositories, depending on the location of the resource being documented. The following five repositories will receive mitigative documentation:

Nevada Historical Society, Reno
Nevada State Museum and Historical Society, Las Vegas
Northeastern Nevada Historical Society, Elko
North Central Nevada Historical Society, Winnemucca
Central Nevada Historical Society, Tonopah

There are four Certified Local Governments (CLGs) in the State of Nevada, which will receive one copy of the mitigative documentation for any resources within their boundaries. The four CLGs are represented by the following organizations:

Historical Resources Commission, City of Reno
Historical Architecture Review Commission, Carson City Historic District
Las Vegas Historical Commission, City of Las Vegas
Comstock Historic District Commission, Virginia City
 

Bibliography

Ames, David
1997 A Primer on Architectural Photography and the Photo Documentation of Historic Structures. Vernacular Architecture Forum 73 (Fall 1997):17-24.

Bucher, Ward, editor
1996 Dictionary of Building Preservation. John Wiley and Sons, New York.

California Office of Historic Preservation
1995 Linear Feature Record. In Instructions for Recording Historical Resources. California Office of Historic Preservation, Sacramento.

Myhrer, Keith
1993 Viewing Transportation Features in Time and Space: A Regional Historic Transportation Systems Model. Nevada Archaeologist. Volume 11.

National Park Service
1983 Secretary of Interior's Standards for and Guidelines for Archaeology and Historic Preservation. F8 Federal Register 44716-68.

1991 How to Apply National Register Criteria for Evaluation. National Register Bulletin 15. National Park Service, Washington, D.C.

Nevada State Historic Preservation Office 
1994  Guidelines Pertinent to the Conduct of Historical Archaeology in the State of Nevada (Draft). State Historic Preservation Office, Carson City.

1998  How to Prepare Nominations to the National Register of Historic Places: A Guide for Nevada Property Owners. State Historic Preservation Office, Carson City.

White, William, Ronald M. James, and Richard Bernstein
1991 Nevada Comprehensive Preservation Plan, second edition. Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology, Carson City.