Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Historic Preservation topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Historic Preservation chair urges support for Main Street tiering, micro-grants and photo digitization
Summary
Laurel Cunningham, chair of the Historic Preservation Commission, told the Pleasant Grove City Council the commission is pursuing Utah Main Street tier 2 status to unlock about $60,000 in façade grants, seeking modest micro-grant funding from the city, and working with BYU to digitize a 700-photo collection for public access.
Laurel Cunningham, chair of the Historic Preservation Commission, briefed the Pleasant Grove City Council at its April 14 work session on the commission’s 2025 work and plans for fiscal 2026. She said the commission is aiming to reach Utah Main Street tier 2 by September, which would "make us eligible for $60,000 worth of grants for our Main Street property owners," she said.
The commission, Cunningham said, is divided into four subcommittees — preservation, archives, history & publications, and community outreach — each focused on an annual project. She told the council the preservation subcommittee’s Main Street work is intended to help downtown property owners with exterior improvements such as façade and building restoration.
Cunningham described an archives effort to record oral histories of older residents and to preserve local memories; Sherilyn Howcroft (an archivist) and a Utah State videographer have begun interviewing residents. She also outlined the history-and-publications team’s walking-tour booklets (about a dozen titles from four years of tours) and noted the commission’s Facebook page has grown to nearly 2,000 followers.
On a separate initiative, Cunningham asked the council to consider a small, targeted micro-grant program to help owners of historic properties maintain exterior features (historic windows, doors or façade elements) and to prevent irreversible loss. "That's why we're calling it a micro grant," she said, describing the request as modest and meant to be proactive rather than a large, sustained entitlement.
Cunningham also invited the council to an April 27 lecture on Alma Christiansen, an early-20th-century photographer whose collection of roughly 700 images is held at BYU. She said she is working with BYU and the records advisory board to digitize selected images and will provide an index for residents who want to check whether family members appear in the collection.
The commission asked council for limited funding to seed the micro-grant program and said it will keep staff and council updated on Main Street tiering progress and the digitization schedule. The commission’s next steps include a July brainstorming session to set fiscal-2026 goals and continued coordination with neighboring towns’ historic commissions.
