These are America's most endangered historic sites. Can they be saved?
The National Trust for Historic Preservation released its annual list of most endangered sites, as the country debates who tells its stories
WASHINGTON ‒ Year after year Ashley Spivey has watched the shoreline erode along the Pamunkey Indian Reservation. She's worried land loss on her community's centuries-old ancestral reservation could get so bad they’d be forced to move.
“It’s unfathomable," said Spivey, an enrolled member of the Pamunkey Indians. “I can't even begin to imagine us not having the ability to live in this place. I know that this isn't necessarily true, but I feel like the loss of this place is the loss of our identity because of what it's meant for our people for so long.’’
The reservation is one of America’s 11 most endangered historic places on this year’s National Trust for Historic Preservation list, released on May 7.
It comes as President Donald Trump has led an effort to shift the national conversation on U.S. history.
“In a time of division and polarization, I think preservation is more important than ever,’’ said Carol Quillen, president and CEO of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a privately funded nonprofit organization. “These projects bring together unlikely coalitions across the country, which form specifically around a meaningful place.’’
The list of endangered sites includes a resort in New York's Catskill Mountains, a chateau in Arizona and several communities in North Carolina still struggling after 2024's Hurricane Helene.
“Preservation has such a powerful impact on the communities where it happens through telling the stories of our community,’’ Quillen said. “It inspires community pride and creates economic opportunities.’’
'The core of our survival'
The Pamunkey Indian Reservation in the Tidewater region of Virginia has been hard hit by climate issues, including sinking land, flooding and erosion along the Pamunkey River, Spivey said.
In 75 to 100 years, the reservation will likely be uninhabitable, said Spivey, who has a doctorate in anthropology. The threat is so real that tribal leaders are looking into relocation options.
“It’s pretty dire,” Spivey said.
Leaders of the federally recognized tribe hope the reservation's inclusion on the endangered list will garner attention, build momentum and drum up financial support to slow down the land loss.
“This reservation is one of the reasons why our tribe has been able to survive ‒ is the reason why we still have cultural traditions and traditions like self-governance,’’ Spivey said. “It's tied to our identity as an Indigenous community.’’
“To lose that place that has defined who we are for so long and has been at the core of our survival for so long is heartbreaking,” she said.
Historic sites tell stories
The National Trust, chartered by Congress in 1949, spends about a year selecting sites to include on its endangered list, considering factors such as its importance to the community, whether there's a strong partnership to support preservation and what impact the site might have once it's protected.
“They're compelling because of the stories they hold and because of what will happen there after they're preserved,’’ said Quillen.
The listings began in 1988. The recognition doesn’t come with funding, but often garners attention and support for the sites.
Spivey welcomes it.
“Getting on their list allows us to be basically put on the map and to bring national, hopefully, awareness to what our community is facing, to then build that momentum hopefully around securing funds,’’ she said.
‘It’s got good bones’
In Idlewild, Michigan, the Hotel Casa Blanca hasn’t been used since it housed a day care center 30 years ago.
During its heyday in the ’50s and ’60s, the hotel attracted Black musicians like Aretha Franklin, who performed there and thought leaders, including W.E.B. Du Bois. Entrepreneurs like Madam CJ Walker also stayed. It was once listed in the Green Book, a travel guide offering Black travelers a safe place to stay during the Jim Crow era.
“It's history ‒ musical history, African American history, American history,’’ said Roni McGregory, project manager for 1st Neighbor, a nonprofit working to restore the hotel. “There's a lot of stories in that building that need to be preserved.”
The windows of the brick building are boarded up. Asbestos was recently removed and electricity was restored.
Its recognition on the endangered sites list is a nod to what was and what could be, McGregory said. A restored hotel would not only offer more rooms in the mostly Black resort vacation area, she said, but could help boost the economy.
The group hopes to garner enough support for the $5 million project to transform it into a Bed & Breakfast. The 10 to 12 rooms would be named after famous people who stayed there.
“That building holds a lot of history and for it to be demolished or not be able to be rehabbed would be a shame,’’ McGregory said. “It’s got good bones. (But) there's a lot of work that needs to be done to bring it back.’’
Japanese fishing village should be remembered
Further west in Los Angeles, supporters hope to save from demolition the last two buildings of a Japanese American fishing village that boosted the tuna industry there more than 80 years ago.
The project known as the Terminal Island Japanese American Tuna Street Buildings aims to preserve the vacant buildings and possibly use them for a cultural center or a general store as there was in the 1940s.
“We can tell the story of this amazing part of the American story and honor the legacy of the folks that helped to build an important industry," Quillen said.
The area also has a lesser-known history. It was the first Japanese American community forced after Pearl Harbor to leave and to go to internment camps, said Adrian Scott Fine, president and CEO of the Los Angeles Conservancy.
“This is the place where it started and most people don't know that story,” he said. “We believe that it's much more real and tangible to tell these types of stories when the place still exists and these two buildings are the only thing that remain."
Another part of Terminal Island was included on the National Trust's 2012 list.
Supporters hope the new listing will generate more interest and support. Separately, there’s an effort by some city officials to designate the buildings as historic cultural monuments.
“These two buildings, in some ways, are the last remaining symbols of that community itself,” Scott Fine said. “That's part of why it's so important."
Other places on the list
The National Trust for Historic Preservation's 2025 list of endangered historic places also includes:
◾Cedar Key, Florida, a cluster of small islands off the west coast of Florida that is representative of “Old Florida," but increasingly threatened by rising sea levels and severe storms.
◾French Broad and Swannanoa River Corridors, Western North Carolina, including the city of Asheville and other communities damaged by Hurricane Helene in late September 2024.
◾May Hicks Curtis House, Flagstaff, Arizona, which commemorates May Hicks Curtis, who sewed the first Arizona state flag in 1911. The house where she lived and worked for decades must be relocated and the City of Flagstaff is working to restore it for community use.
◾Mystery Castle, Phoenix, constructed between 1934 and 1945 by Boyce Luther Gulley, who built the complex by hand for his daughter Mary Lou without plans, permits, or formal architectural or engineering training. Mary Lou and her mother, Frances, transformed the castle into a nationally known tourist attraction from the 1950s-2000s, but it is now in a state of disrepair.
◾Oregon Caves Chateau, Caves Junction, Oregon, closed in 2018 because of its need for extensive repairs, served an important economic role in its rural region for 91 years and could again if revitalized.
◾San Juan Hotel, San Juan, Texas, built in 1920, has long been one of the area's most recognizable landmarks.
- ◾The Turtle, Niagara Falls, New York, completed in 1981 by Arapaho architect Dennis Sun Rhodes, the building, which has been vacant for three decades, stands as a powerful symbol of Indigenous heritage.◾The Wellington, Pine Hill, New York, one of few surviving large-scale wood-frame resorts built in the Catskills in the late 1800s. Community members have purchased the building to serve as a food market, cafe, and affordable housing, but need additional funding to bring it to reality.