On Monday, St. Cloud Main Street collaborated with the City of St. Cloud to celebrate Historic Preservation Month with an unveiling of the St. Cloud Historical plaques and the first Historic Preservation Award ceremony.
“If you don’t know where you come from, you often make poor decisions about where you’re going,” St. Cloud Mayor Nathan Blackwell said, while officially declaring the month of May as the Historic Preservation Month for the city of St. Cloud.
The Historic Preservation Awards Program emphasizes education, outreach, engagement, and community awareness. Three groups were recognized and honored for the work they’ve done in helping to preserve history and help the economic development of the community. These groups are the St. Cloud Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA), St. Cloud Main Street, and The Women’s Heritage Museum Club.
“History lives on,” Toni Jones said, as she gave her praise to the 70 women and many hours spent towards the completion of the Prevention Project that worked to save the documents damaged by Hurricane Irma.
Many members of the community gathered, from St. Cloud Fire Rescue and Police to and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, to learn about how they can celebrate their history and obtain an historical plaque for their building.
Kathleen Silva, owner of the Dr. Woods house and two others on Minnesota and Pennsylvania Avenues, expressed her appreciation for historical preservation and that she was looking forward to learning about obtaining plaques for her other two buildings.
St. Cloud Main Street, a non-profit organization started in 1999 dedicated to the historic preservation and economic development of St. Cloud, hosted guest speaker Maria Shreve, a real estate professional with over 20 years of experience specializing in marketing and selling historic buildings, including hands-on rehab of over 15 historic buildings.
Her presentation discussed her experiences with historical preservation. She explained to owners what to look for, such as any wiring issues, when it came to ensuring that an historical building was up to code before they applied for a Historical Plaque.
Any building over 50 years old within city limits is able to apply and submit their application to the St. Cloud City Hall by Feb. 1 of each year. Plaques will be given to those whose buildings qualify during the following ceremony in May.
“We have a really town with a lot of great history, it’s really good to celebrate that,” St. Cloud Deputy Mayor Kolby Urban said.
