Preservation Success Story

[dbigtex56]

These articles illustrate how ordinary citizens can take on corporate America and make a difference. Walgreens has reversed its decision to demolish an historic structure, and are now contributing to its restoration.

March 22, 2006

A 190-year-old inn that may have been a stop on the Underground Railroad could be torn down for a Walgreens. Last week the town of Chili, N.Y., located outside Rochester, approved a developer's plan to build a drugstore on the site of the Stagecoach Inn.

"There are quite a few people who are against it," says Darcy Beeman, a member of the grassroots group Friends of the Stagecoach Inn. "Our take is that the two buildings can coexist."

"My feeling is that they didn't do their homework on its cultural and historical significance," says longtime resident Pastor Rodney Jones. "It's the most important historic site in our town."

Built around 1816 as a stagecoach stop, inn, tavern, and post office, in 1867 the two-story brick building became the Chili Seminary, the first Free Methodist educational institution in the country. The Free Methodists, who were abolitionists, operated a "temperance house" in the building and may have sheltered runaway slaves there, Beeman says.

Link to full National Trust article

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From the Democrat & Chronicle(Rochester, NY):

(January 24, 2007)

[jmancuso]

but this is new york not houston...they place a higher value on history. houston is infamous for allowing just about anything to be bulldozed in the name of progress.

[dbigtex56]

but this is new york not houston...they place a higher value on history. houston is infamous for allowing just about anything to be bulldozed in the name of progress.

That certainly has been the pattern here so far.

Yet, Houston is capable of change. Fifty years ago, there were separate drinking fountains and restrooms for blacks and whites. We're now a city proud of its racial and cultural diversity.

When I moved to Houston 25 years ago, inside the Loop was considered to be past its prime; there was virtually no redevelopment in Montrose or Midtown. That situation certainly has undergone a dramatic change.

In the 1970s Buffalo Bayou was an open sewer; the EPA had to step in to make the city clean up its act. Now, the western portion is an attraction, and it appears that the eastern portion will follow suit.

Houston is a dynamic city, and if enough citizens express an interest in historic preservation it has a chance of taking hold here, too. We've overcome many of our past failings; why stop now?

(Regarding that town in New York - although it's spelled 'Chili', the natives pronounce it Shy-Lye. The food is pronounced in the conventional way. Go figure! )