Museum To Be Gets Listing As Historic Place

Museum-to-be gets listing as historic place

By HEATHER HILL

NEWS SPECIAL WRITER

A planned museum of county history will have one more lure for visitors when it opens next year - a listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Kellogg-Warden House in downtown Ann Arbor received the designation from the U.S. Department of the Interior this past July, making the building a national landmark and giving the site of the Washtenaw County Historical Society’s new Museum on Main Street an importance aside from the ex-hibits that will be displayed within.

For society members involved in the restoration of the 157-year-old structure, recognition from the federal government means two things.

“Prestige, lots of prestige,” said Louisa Pieper, a member of the historical society who assisted with the National Register application. “Also, it is now eligible for federal grants for renovation work.”

Winning those grants will help finish a project started five years ago, said Pieper, when the society obtained the house from the University of Michigan and moved it from Wall Street to its present home on the comer of North Main and Beakes streets.

Since then, extensive volunteer work has restored the exterior.