The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe has received a grant of nearly $100,000 for historic preservation from History Colorado’s State Historical Fund.
The nation’s largest preservation program of its kind continues to fend for Colorado’s future. History Colorado’s State Historical Fund announced a newly completed grant round providing $2,051,288 of project funding for preservation efforts across the state. These awards leverage $1.01 million in matching funding provided by grant applicants and their community partners for a total project impact exceeding $3 million. Community resilience, priceless cultural resources, and thriving tourism are among the eventual results.
“While historic preservation may sound like a ‘nice thing’ in times of crisis, it is in fact a means of providing multi-layered economic stimulus to communities that can leverage it the most,” said Tim Stroh, AIA, director of the State Historical Fund, in a release. “More than 75 percent of the grants administered by the State Historical Fund are currently allocated to rural areas of Colorado. This is one of the major reasons why every $1 million spent on historic preservation in Colorado leads to $1.03 million in additional spending, 14 new jobs, and $636,700 in increased household incomes across the state.”
Highlights from this grant round include:
The Valley View School, Salida was awarded a $199,000 grant request to help complete the final phase of work needed to utilize the historic schoolhouse.
Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Register, Towaoc was awarded a $99,231 grant request. The tribe is one of three federally recognized tribes of the Ute Nation and home to Colorado’s only Tribal Historic Preservation Office. The Tribal Historic Preservation Office’s mission is to carry out the tribe’s commitment to preserve and promote the cultural heritage of the Ute people. This grant will provide funding for creating a Tribal Register of Historic Places and Tribal Review Board, working with elders to develop a list of Traditional Cultural Properties, and listing Sleeping Ute Mountain to both the Tribal and National Registers. This project received extensive State and National support, including a letter from Thomas King, co-author of National Register Bulletin 38 on Traditional Cultural Properties. With this funding and support, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe will identify and preserve physical properties associated with often-intangible aspects of cultural history including those related to cultural practices, traditions, beliefs, lifeways, arts, crafts, or social institutions of a living community.
History Colorado’s mission is to create a better future for Colorado by inspiring wonder in the past. They serve as the state’s memory, preserving and sharing the places, stories, and material culture of Colorado through educational programs, historic preservation grants, collecting, outreach to Colorado communities, the History Colorado Center and Stephen H. Hart Research Center in Denver, and nine other museums and historic attractions statewide. History Colorado is one of only six Smithsonian Affiliates in Colorado. Visit HistoryColorado.org, or call 303-HISTORY, for more information.
