Michelle Willard, Daily News Journal, May 10, 2015
MURFREESBORO — Several programs at Middle Tennessee State University were awarded Historic Preservation Fund grants, which were announced Thursday by Gov. Bill Haslam and the T ennessee Historical Commission.
“Protecting Tennessee’s historic places is critical to preserving our state’s heritage,” Haslam said in a release. “Today’s announcement of more than $700,000 in assistance to communities across the state helps ensure that Tennessee’s rich h istory will continue to be shared with future generations.”
More than $80,000 of those grants are coming to MTSU programs, according to the release from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.
One of MTSU’s largest grants will go to fund survey and investigations of prehistoric sites in Eagleville.
The $25,000 grant was awarded to the Rutherford County Archaeological Research Program for a second field school for MTSU students at the Magnolia Valley site in southwestern Rutherford County, explained Tanya Peres, MTSU professor and RCARP director.
“This work will help us to further understand how and why people lived at the site ca. 5,000 years before present,” Peres said.
She said the grant will also help RCARP investigate features at the site that may date to AD 1000-1450, “which is a time in prehistory that is not well represented in the county,” Peres said.
MTSU’s department of sociology and anthropology was also awarded $3,410 to fund posters for Tennessee Archaeology Week, Peres said. “The poster grant is to design, print, and distribute a poster highlighting an important aspect of Tennessee prehistory and/or history as part of the month-long celebration of Tennessee Archaeology in September 2015,” she said. She added the poster design will be unveiled at the beginning of September on the “30 Days of Archaeology” blog by the Tennessee Council for Professional Archaeology.
“Any interested individual can request a poster be mailed to them, free of charge, via a form on the blog post,” she said.
MTSU’s Public History program was awarded $12,181 to fund a geophysical survey using ground penetrating radar and magnetic gradiometry at Clover Bottom Mansion property in Nashville, explained Kathryn Sikes, assistant professor of historical archaeology.
The data gathered will give clues to what lies beneath the surface that “resulted from the property’s past landscape use, both historic and prehistoric,” Sikes said. “The survey complements ongoing research into the site’s archaeological resources and potential, focusing on evidence of the plantation’s poorly documented antebellum and postbellum African-American majority,” Sikes said.
The data collected by the survey, along with planned archaeological investigations, will add to the understanding to Clover Bottom, Sikes said. The antebellum mansion that dates to 1853 is built on land originally owned by Tennessee settler Capt. John Donelson.
The largest grant awarded to MTSU will go to the Fullerton Laboratory for Spatial Technology. The $40,000 grant will fund efforts to digitize data for historic and architectural survey files and for survey data entry for computerization of survey files.
All the grants awarded Thursday were giving to community and civic organizations for projects that support the preservation of historic and archaeological resources.
“These grants contribute to the study and protection of a wide range of Tennessee’s treasured historic places-buildings, archaeological sites and communities. These places help make our state unique and contribute to our quality of life,” said Patrick McIntyre, State Historic Preservation officer and executive director of the Tennessee Historical Commission, in the release. Awarded annually, 60 percent of the project funds are from the federal Historic Preservation Fund and 40 percent of project funds come from t he grantee. Grants are competitive and this year the Tennessee Historical Commission staff reviewed 67 applications with funding requests totaling approximately $1.5 million, nearly double the amount of funding available. This year’s selection included building and archaeological surveys, design guidelines for historic districts, rehabilitation of historic buildings, posters highlighting the state’s history and archaeology and training for historic zoning staff or commissioners.