National Park Service

National Historic Landmarks Survey U.S. Department of the Interior

Landmarks that Transformed Education

Racial Desegregation in Public Education in the

United States

Central High School’s “Little Rock Nine” and Daisy Bates Posed in Living Room (Library of Congress, National

Association for the Advancement of Colored People Collection, LC-USZ62-119154 DLC).

A National Historic Landmark Theme Study Update

May 17, 2004
National Park Service

National Historic Landmarks Survey U.S. Department of the Interior

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On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court proclaimed that “in the field of public education 

‘separate but equal’ has no place.” This ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

overturned the separate but equal doctrine that was based on the Court’s 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson

decision that separate facilities for blacks were constitutional as long as they were equal to those 

facilities for whites. This ruling was a watershed in the protracted judicial battle waged by the 

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and many communities 

to bring a legal end to state-sanctioned school segregation. The landmark decision raised the 

nation’s consciousness about school segregation and fueled the modern civil rights movement 

that would soon force the federal government to take action on behalf of racial democracy. As 

author Richard Kluger describes in the definitive history of Brown: 

Probably no case ever to come before the nation’s highest tribunal affected more 

directly the minds, hearts, and daily lives of so many Americans. . . . The decision 

marked the turning point in the nation’s willingness to face the consequences of 

centuries of racial discrimination.1

In recognition of the fiftieth anniversary of the Brown case, the National Park Service presents 

this compendium of places associated with the century long struggle to desegregate schools 

that were identified in the National Historic Landmarks theme study, “Racial Desegregation 

in Public Education in the U.S.” Authorized by Congress, the study tells the story behind this 

extraordinary social and legal achievement that transformed education in America and became 

one of the greatest social movements in this country. As a result of this study, the Secretary of 

the Interior has designated five National Historic Landmarks that best exemplify and illustrate 

this history. These sites join six previously designated National Historic Landmarks related to 

this history. Another seven sites are recommended for further consideration.

The National Park Service is also proud to be the stewards of two units with direct ties to the 

Brown decision: the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka, Kansas, 

and the Central High School National Historic Site in Little Rock, Arkansas. Together with the 

National Historic Landmarks described in this theme study, these places are the most important 

physical reminders of the challenges overcome by our ancestors and serve as opportunities to 

help educate future generations about important struggles in our nation’s history.

Hon. Craig Manson

Assistant Secretary of the Interior

for Fish Wildlife and Parks

May 17, 2004

1 Richard Kluger, “Simple Justice” (New York: Vintage Books, 1977), x.
National Park Service

National Historic Landmarks Survey U.S. Department of the Interior

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The following properties were designated as NHLs as a result of the Racial Desegregation in Public 

Education Theme Study.

Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel, Founders Library, and Frederick Douglas 

Memorial Hall, Howard University, Washington, D.C.

Aerial view of Founders Library, Howard University, Washington, D.C. (Courtesy of Howard University Library, 

photograph by Harry G. Robinson, III).

A portion of the Howard University campus is nationally significant as the setting for the 

institution’s role in the legal establishment of racially desegregated public education and for 

its association with two nationally recognized leaders of that fight: Charles Hamilton Houston 

and Thurgood Marshall. Beginning in 1929, Howard Law School became an educational 

training ground for civil rights through the vision of Charles Hamilton Houston. This program 

produced activist black lawyers dedicated to securing the civil rights of all people of color and, 

in 1936, established the first course in civil rights law. Thereafter, lawyer Thurgood Marshall, 

of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense 

Fund (LDF), led the organization’s strategy to desegregate schools leading up to the Brown 

v. Board of Education case. In this case, the U.S. Supreme Court declared school segregation 

unconstitutional.
National Park Service

National Historic Landmarks Survey U.S. Department of the Interior

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Three buildings contribute to this National Historic Landmark. Founders Library, which housed 

the law school on its third floor, is where LDF lawyers conducted their practice trials for the 

Supreme Court cases. Also at this location, Houston taught a course in civil rights law as a parttime professor and was involved in the academic preparation of students who would eventually 

litigate prominent civil rights cases.

Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel hosted sessions of a two-day conference in April 1952, in 

which Howard University and the Journal of Negro Education convened leading professionals in 

the fields of psychology, politics, law, sociology, and education, to analyze efforts to desegregate 

schools. Out of the conference emerged a revitalized commitment to desegregate public 

education through the courts, and a strategy to address white opposition and logistical problems 

that might arise from integration.

Frederick Douglass Memorial Hall symbolizes the academic research undertaken in preparation 

for cases litigated by the NAACP LDF. This building is where Howard University professors 

and LDF lawyers met to discuss how their research into the harmful effects and infeasibility 

of the “separate but equal” doctrine weakened the legality of segregation. The buildings were 

designated a National Historic Landmark by the Secretary of the Interior on January 3, 2001.

Frederick Douglas Memorial Hall, Howard University, Washington, D.C. (Courtesy of Howard University,

photograph by Mohamed Mekkawi).
National Park Service

National Historic Landmarks Survey U.S. Department of the Interior

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Bizzell Library, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma

Bizzell Library, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma (National Historic Landmark photograph).

The University of Oklahoma’s Bizzell Library is associated with a crucial aspect of the NAACP 

LDF’s strategy to end public school segregation that became a cornerstone of the U.S. Supreme 

Court’s Brown decision. As part of its early legal strategy, LDF lawyers began attacking school 

segregation at the professional and graduate school level in the belief that the cost of equalizing 

these facilities under the “separate but equal” doctrine would be prohibitive. Ruling in McLaurin 

v. Oklahoma Board of Regents, the U.S. Supreme Court found that under the equal protection 

clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, “separate but equal” conditions were not feasible in 

graduate and professional education based on intangible factors.

A retired black professor, George McLaurin, applied to the University of Oklahoma on January 

28, 1948, to pursue a Doctorate in Education. School authorities were required to deny him 

admission solely because of his race under Oklahoma statutes that made it illegal to maintain, 

operate, teach, or attend a school at which both whites and blacks were enrolled or taught. 

McLaurin filed suit and a state district court found the Oklahoma statute unconstitutional. 

Thereafter the university’s Board of Regents voted to admit McLaurin, but on a segregated 

basis. He had to sit separate from other students in his classroom and in the cafeteria. In Bizzell 

Library he sat at a separate desk on the mezzanine level away from the white students in the Main 

Reading Room.
National Park Service

National Historic Landmarks Survey U.S. Department of the Interior

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NAACP LDF lawyers filed suit and eventually appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case 

attracted attention from the executive branch of government. In a memorandum to the Court, 

the U.S. Department of Justice cited the importance of the case in testing “the vitality and 

strength of the democratic ideals to which the United States is dedicated” and urged the Court 

to renounce the “separate but equal” doctrine.2 The Court found that McLaurin’s segregation 

made him “handicapped in his pursuit of effective graduate instruction” and that “[s]uch 

restrictions impair and inhibit his ability to study, to engage in discussion and exchange views 

with other students, and in general to learn his profession.”3

In reaching its decision the Court found that intangible factors such as “intellectual 

commingling” with other students, were essential to an equitable education. These factors 

played a role four years later in the Brown decision when the Court cited its earlier finding in 

the McLaurin case that intangible factors in education prohibited the possibility of the “separate 

but equal” doctrine. The Secretary of the Interior designated Bizzell Library a National Historic 

Landmark on January 3, 2001.

Bizzell Library, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, Main Reading Room (National Historic 

Landmark photograph).

2 McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, et al. U.S. Supreme Court Records & Briefs, Case No. 34, Memorandum for the 

United States as Amicus Curiae.

3 McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, et al., 399 U.S. 637 at 641 (1950).
National Park Service

National Historic Landmarks Survey U.S. Department of the Interior

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John Philip Sousa Junior High School, Washington, D.C.

John Philip Sousa Junior High School, Washington, D.C. (National Historic Landmark photograph).

The John Philip Sousa Junior High School (now the John Philip Sousa Middle School) is 

associated with the struggle to desegregate schools in the nation’s capitol as part of the Bolling 

v. Sharpe court case. The U.S. Supreme Court decided this case on the same day as the public 

school segregation cases in Kansas, Virginia, Delaware, and South Carolina combined in Brown 

v. Board of Education. The Bolling case was an integral part of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision 

that neither the federal or state governments could maintain racially segregated schools.

On September 11, 1950, in a carefully planned maneuver, twelve black school children, along 

with a police escort and lawyers, presented themselves for admission to the brand new all-white 

John Philip Sousa Junior High School. Their denial for admission formed the grounds to legally 

challenge federally segregated schools in the District of Columbia. The decision to challenge 

segregation itself in this case, rather than the issue of equal facilities, proved promising in light of 

the Supreme Court’s recent decision that intangibles were part of the equality determination. To 

prepare for the case, faculty at Howard University conducted a massive extracurricular project.
National Park Service

National Historic Landmarks Survey U.S. Department of the Interior

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In a unanimous opinion Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote, “In view of our 

decision that the Constitution prohibits the states from maintaining racially segregated public 

schools, it would be unthinkable that the same Constitution would impose a lesser duty on the 

Federal Government.”4

 Full support of the Court’s decision for the immediate desegregation 

of the District’s schools for the upcoming fall term came from President Eisenhower, who 

had pledged to end segregation in the Capitol in his 1952 campaign. To monitor progress, the 

President personally asked for weekly reports.

As a result, the District’s schools opened with mixed classes and faculty in September 1954, prior 

to the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown II (1955) that mandated schools to desegregate “with 

all deliberate speed.” The school now stands as a symbol of the lengthy conflict that ultimately led 

to the racial desegregation of schools by the federal government and marked the beginning of the 

modern civil rights movement. John Philip Sousa Junior High School was designated a National 

Historic Landmark by the Secretary of the Interior on August 7, 2001.

John Philip Sousa Junior High School, Washington, D.C. (National Historic Landmark photograph).

4 347 U.S. 497 at 500.
National Park Service

National Historic Landmarks Survey U.S. Department of the Interior

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Daisy Bates House, Little Rock, Arkansas

Daisy Bates House, Little Rock, Arkansas, Thanksgiving Dinner, 1957 (National Historic Landmark photograph, 

courtesy of Will Counts).

The Daisy Bates House is nationally significant for its role as the de facto command post for the 

Central High School desegregation crisis in Little Rock and its association with Daisy Bates who 

was at the forefront of black community efforts to desegregate the school. The house served 

as a haven for the nine African-American students who desegregated the school and a place to 

plan the best way to achieve their goals. This event marks a milestone in the history of school 

desegregation when, for the first time, a U.S. President used federal powers to uphold and 

implement a federal court ruling regarding school desegregation.

Activists Daisy Bates and her husband, Lucius Christopher (L.C.) Bates, resided in this house 

and had founded the Arkansas State Press, a weekly newspaper published “on the conviction that 

a newspaper was needed to carry on the fight for Negro rights as nothing else can.”5

 Because 

of her position as President of the Arkansas State chapter of the NAACP, Ms. Bates became the 

official liaison between the students and the Little Rock School Board during the crisis. The 

Bates newspaper chronicled the school desegregation battle and became involved in a legal battle 

waged by the NAACP LDF to accelerate desegregation as proposed in a new school board plan.

5 Daisy Bates, The Long Shadow of Little Rock, rpt. (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1986): 34 and 47.
National Park Service

National Historic Landmarks Survey U.S. Department of the Interior

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Using the provisions of this new plan, nine black students, who would become known as the 

“Little Rock Nine,” gained admission into Central High School for the 1957-58 school year. 

Tensions escalated in the community as white segregationists voiced their intentions to resist 

school desegregation. In defiance of segregation, Governor Orval Faubus cited the potential for 

violence and called out the National Guard to prevent the nine students, who were greeted by a 

hostile white crowd, from entering the school. In response, President Eisenhower, who viewed 

the event as a constitutional crisis, mobilized the Army and federalized the Arkansas National 

Guard. On September 25, 1957, the Arkansas National Guard escorted the Little Rock Nine into 

Central High School and remained there for their protection during the school year.

Throughout this crisis and during the 1957-1958 school year, the Little Rock Nine used the 

Bates House as a planning place, an official daily pick-up and drop-off point, and a place to be 

counseled and consoled. Daisy Bates also served as liaison with parents and local and federal 

officials in planning how desegregation would proceed. The Bates House stands as a symbol 

of the role of civil rights advocates who fought against legal and social obstacles to educational 

opportunity for African-American youth during a period of southern massive resistance to 

desegregation. The Daisy Bates House was designated a National Historic Landmark by the 

Secretary of the Interior on January 3, 2001.

Daisy Bates House, Little Rock, Arkansas (National Historic Landmark photograph).
National Park Service

National Historic Landmarks Survey U.S. Department of the Interior

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New Kent Middle School and George W. Watkins School, 

New Kent County, Virginia

New Kent School, 1930 Building, New Kent County, Virginia (National Historic Landmark photograph).

The New Kent School and the George W. Watkins School are associated with the most significant 

public school desegregation case the U.S. Supreme Court decided after Brown v. Board of 

Education. The 1968 Green v. County School Board of New Kent County decision set the standards 

that judges would use to determine whether school districts were in constitutional compliance 

in school segregation cases. Thus, a decade of massive resistance to school desegregation in the 

South from 1955-1964, was replaced by an era of massive integration from 1968-1973, as the 

Court placed an affirmative duty on school boards to integrate schools.

After passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which authorized the federal government to 

withhold funds from segregated schools, the New Kent County School Board adopted its 

“Freedom of Choice Plan” whereby students entering the first and eighth grades chose which 

school to attend. In theory the plan should have desegregated formerly black schools. However, 

after three years the Freedom of Choice Plan in New Kent County proved ineffective. Only 155 

African-American students attended the New Kent School and 85% of the African-American 

student population attended the still segregated Watkins School. As the U.S. Commission on 

Civil Rights reported, freedom of choice plans failed because of factors such as retaliation and 

hostility from the white community, and threats of violence.
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National Historic Landmarks Survey U.S. Department of the Interior

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With a segregated school system still in place, the New Kent County branch of the NAACP 

filed suit. In the Green case, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the county had been operating 

a dual system of schools as ruled unconstitutional in Brown; one that extended beyond 

student assignments down to “every facet of school operations—faculty, staff, transportation, 

extracurricular activities and facilities.”6 The Court stated that the board had to convert 

immediately from a dual system of a “white school” and a “black school,” to a unitary system of 

“just schools.” The Green decision ushered in an era of massive integration in public schools 

across the South as school districts had to address the six “Green” factors to attain a unitary 

status.

The New Kent School and the George W. Watkins School were designated a National Historic 

Landmark by the Secretary of the Interior on August 7, 2001. An online lesson plan, “New Kent 

School and the George W. Watkins School: From Freedom of Choice to Integration,” is available 

online through the Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) web-site (https://www.nps.gov/

subjects/teachingwithhistoricplaces/index.htm).

George W. Watkins School, New Kent County, Virginia (National 

Historic Landmark photograph).

Yearbook Photograph of Integrated Student Government Body, New Kent High 

School, New Kent County, Virginia (National Register of Historic Places, Teaching 

with Historic Places photograph, courtesy of New Kent County Schools, Virginia).

6 Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, 391 U.S. 430 (1968), at 437.
National Park Service

National Historic Landmarks Survey U.S. Department of the Interior

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Sites Recognized Prior To 2000

Smith School, Boston, Massachusetts – Boston African American National 

Historic Site

This school represents the pivotal point in legally 

mandated school segregation when the Massachusetts 

Supreme Court established the separate but equal 

principle in Roberts v. City of Boston (1849). This 

principle directly influenced the U.S. Supreme Court’s 

decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) that allowed 

separate but equal under the Constitution. Located in 

a pre-civil war free black community, and part of the 

Boston African American National Historic Site, Smith 

School was the all-black school associated with this 

first legal challenge to school segregation. The Boston 

African American National Historic Site was established 

on October 10, 1980.

Smith School, Boston, Massachusetts (Boston African-American National 

Historic Site photograph, courtesy of Museum of Afro-American History, 

https://www.nps.gov/boaf/learn/historyculture/abiel-smith-school.htm).

Charles Sumner House, Boston, Massachusetts

Home of white abolitionist and attorney Charles Sumner who, along with Boston’s first black 

attorney, Robert Morris, argued for equal education in Roberts v. City of Boston. Sumner 

concluded that separate could never be 

inherently equal and that segregation marked 

a race as inferior. Such an argument would 

not be made again for another century in 

the NAACP’s professional and graduate 

school cases in 1950 and again in the school 

segregation cases consolidated in the U.S. 

Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education

decision in 1954 that overturned the separate 

but equal doctrine. The Charles Sumner 

House was designated a National Historic 

Landmark on November 7, 1973.

Charles Sumner House, Boston, Massachusetts 

(National Historic Landmark photograph).
National Park Service

National Historic Landmarks Survey U.S. Department of the Interior

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Lincoln Hall, Berea College, Madison County, Kentucky

A private school founded in 1855, Berea College 

was the first college established in the U.S. for the 

specific purpose of educating black and white 

students together. In 1904 the Kentucky state 

legislature mandated that black and white students 

could only be taught simultaneously if they were 

taught twenty-five miles apart. The U.S. Supreme 

Court upheld the state’s right to pass laws to 

regulate state chartered private institutions on the 

basis of race, thus lending additional credence to 

do the same for public schools. This is the only 

instance in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld 

school segregation in higher education. Lincoln 

Hall was designated a National Historic Landmark 

on December 2, 1974.

Lincoln Hall, Berea College (Photograph from 

National Register of Historic Places Online Itinerary 

“We Shall Overcome, Historic Places of the Civil 

Rights Movement,” courtesy of Berea College).

Sumner and Monroe Elementary Schools, Topeka, Kansas – Brown v. Board 

of Education National Historic Site

These two schools represent the NAACP case in 

Topeka, Kansas. They are among the twelve schools 

listed in the court case. Sumner Elementary School 

was cited as the segregated white school at which 

Oliver Brown was denied the right to enroll his 

daughter Linda. Monroe Elementary School was the 

segregated black school to which his daughter was 

assigned. This case became one of the four public 

school segregation cases consolidated in Brown v. 

Board of Education before the U.S. Supreme Court 

in 1954 that overturned the “separate but equal” 

doctrine in public education. Sumner and Monroe 

Elementary Schools were designated National Historic 

Landmarks on May 4, 1987. Monroe Elementary was 

subsequently designated a National Historic Site on 

October 26, 1992.

Monroe Elementary School (National 

HistoricLandmark photograph).

Sumner Elementary School (National 

Historic Landmark photograph).
National Park Service

National Historic Landmarks Survey U.S. Department of the Interior

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Robert Russa Moton High School, Farmville, Virginia

Moton High School was the run down 

high school where its students initiated a 

strike for equal facilities and subsequently 

filed suit against school desegregation. 

It was among the school segregation 

cases consolidated in Brown v. Board 

of Education (1954) before the U.S. 

Supreme Court case that struck down the 

“separate but equal” doctrine governing 

public school policy. Subsequently, it 

is associated with Virginia’s efforts at 

“massive resistance” to school integration 

when Prince Edward County closed its 

public schools. Moton High School was 

designated a National Historic Landmark 

on August 5, 1998.

Central High School, Little Rock, Arkansas – Little Rock Central High School 

National Historic Site

Central High School stands as the first test of national resolve under the Eisenhower 

administration to enforce black civil rights in the face of massive southern defiance during the 

period following the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. On September 25, a day after 

President Eisenhower issued Executive 

Order 10730, the “Little Rock Nine” 

marched into Little Rock High School 

under the protection of federal troops 

and the Arkansas National Guard. The 

President upheld the stipulations in the 

Fourteenth Amendment as the nine 

students desegregated Little Rock High 

School despite the need for federal 

intervention. Little Rock Central High 

School was designated a National 

Historic Landmark on May 20, 1982 and 

thereafter as a National Historic Site on 

November 6, 1998.

Robert R. Moton Conference Center (National Historic 

Landmark photograph).

Little Rock Central High School (Courtesy of Tod Swiecichowski).
National Park Service

National Historic Landmarks Survey U.S. Department of the Interior

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Sites Recommended for Further Consideration

• Howard High School, Wilmington, Delaware

Howard High School is linked with one of the public school segregation cases combined 

in Brown v. Board of Education and is therefore associated with the landmark decision that 

struck down the “separate but equal” doctrine governing public policy with regard to race. 

In this case, a group of black parents requested that the school board allow their children 

to attend the all-white school within walking distance of their homes, rather than busing 

their children to the all-black Howard High School. Howard High School is scheduled 

for consideration at the fall 2004 meeting of the National Park System Advisory Board’s 

Landmarks Committee.

• Foster Auditorium, University of Alabama

Foster Auditorium is the site of the June 11, 1963 “stand in the schoolhouse door” by 

Governor George Wallace in defiance of a proclamation by President John F. Kennedy to 

obey a court order to admit two African-American students to the university. The auditorium 

is a symbol of southern massive resistance to school desegregation following the 1954 Brown

decision and the call by the Kennedy administration for a stronger federal commitment to 

civil rights that became the foundation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Foster Auditorium is 

scheduled for consideration at the fall 2004 meeting of the National Park System Advisory 

Board’s Landmarks Committee.

• Summerton High School, Summerton, South Carolina

This is the only school still standing of the five schools in Clarendon County School 

District #22 associated with the consolidation of the school segregation cases before the 

U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education that overturned the separate but equal 

doctrine in public education. Summerton High School was also involved in Briggs v. Elliott, 

that dealt with the subsequent enforcement of the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

• Lyceum, University of Mississippi

The Lyceum Building is the symbol of the Kennedy administration’s stance in enforcing the 

U.S. Constitution and black civil rights over Mississippi’s refusal to integrate the university in 

1962. The showdown at the Lyceum is associated with the admittance of African-American 

student, James Meredith, and resulted in two deaths.

• U.S. Post Office and Court Building, Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, Richmond, Virginia 

U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, New Orleans, Louisiana and Atlanta, Georgia

These courts played a prominent role in the status of school desegregation implementation 

during southern mass resistance following the Brown decision.

For more information on the properties discussed in the 2004 update to the Racial 

Desegregation of Public Education in the United States theme study, please visit the NPS’s 

National Historic Landmarks web-site at https://www.nps.gov/nhl. Nomination forms for all 

properties designated as a result of this study are available on our web-site.