State Historic Preservation Offices work tirelessly to promote the historic places ability to share the stories and experiences of all Americans. Have a look at some initiatives around the country which highlight these efforts.
While we continue to build out this page with the most recent examples, be sure to check out Section 106 Success stories featured by the ACHP and the National Trust for Historic Preservation
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A 2016 investigation into the proposed replacement of the Huntsville Federal Courthouse, transformed what initially appeared to be an ordinary courthouse site into a place where layers of Huntsville’s history — including Native American, plantation, African American, industrial, and urban-renewal histories — could be documented and understood.
Although the site had been heavily disturbed by a former mental health hospital and parking lots, Alabama SHPO staff recognized that archaeological resources could survive beneath the surface. Section 106 review prompted additional archaeological investigations, including ground-penetrating radar, which revealed intact foundations, cellars, privies, wells, and Native American Woodland-period features.
Further research connected the discoveries to an early plantation and enslaved population, a later African American mill village, and neighborhoods ultimately displaced through urban renewal. A Memorandum of Agreement allowed these resources and stories to be documented and interpreted while the new federal courthouse moved forward.
Section 106 helped uncover a history that otherwise might have remained invisible — and ensured that history informed the project.
Streamlining Conservation Projects is exemplified by the 2017 Prototype Programmatic Agreement (PPA) signed by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Arizona SHPO, and Arizona State Land Department. The PPA allows screened exemptions and enables trained NRCS staff to conduct small surveys on private lands.
Over the past five years, the PPA has supported review of 915 projects. Of those, 572 (63%) did not require a pedestrian survey. The approach has expedited conservation activities and saved producers and taxpayers millions of dollars while continuing to protect cultural resources. One project south of Holbrook illustrates the efficiencies, including 100 acres of brush management, two miles of fencing, a one-mile livestock pipeline with watering facilities, and two wells. Under the PPA, the fencing and brush management components were exempted from further review, allowing those activities to proceed while inventory and consultation continued for the remaining components.
The PPA provided a practical, predictable path to Section 106 compliance, allowing conservation work to move forward more quickly while reducing costs for producers.
Unlocking Housing Opportunities The rehabilitation of 655 Broadway in Denver demonstrates how Section 106 can tap into unrealized value.
A local housing authority planned to use funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to convert a mid-century office building into low-income and transitional housing. Because the individually eligible historic building would undergo substantial changes, Colorado SHPO determined the project would have an adverse effect. Rather than stopping the project, the Section 106 consultation helped identify an opportunity: historic rehabilitation could qualify the project for federal and state historic tax credits.
The project team pursued National Register listing and historic tax credits — ultimately bringing significantly more resources to the project, including the original HUD funding and additional federal and state historic tax credits.
Today, 655 Broadway provides housing for patients discharged from the adjacent Denver Health complex who need a place to recover. The project is a powerful example of Section 106 working as intended: consultation identified a potential problem, opened the door to new investment, and helped turn an existing building into needed housing.
Discovering History at the Jones site began with Federal Highway Administration-led traffic improvements to Old Farms Road, including a safer, flood-resilient crossing over the Farmington River, an area rich in archaeological resources.
During project planning, archaeologists identified the potential for deeply buried archaeological deposits that could be affected by bridge construction. Working closely with construction and engineering teams, the project developed a plan to conduct additional archaeological investigations alongside construction excavations.
Approximately six feet below the surface, archaeologists discovered artifacts associated with a hearth. Radiocarbon dating of charcoal from the deposits returned a date of approximately 12,500 years ago. The discovery represents the oldest known archaeological site in Connecticut and is unique in many respects within the Northeast. The site has the potential to answer many questions about the first people that arrived in our state and it never would have been identified without the Section 106 process.
Federated States of Micronesia
In Tofol, Kosrae, the Srungansralu site demonstrates how Section 106 review brings community-held traditional knowledge into infrastructure planning while accommodating development and preservation.
The Srungansralu River is associated with oral traditions concerning activities undertaken in preparation for the coronation of the next Tokosra (Kosraean King). Although previous archaeological surveys documented evidence of past human occupation, the site’s broader significance as a cultural landscape had not been fully established.
When landowners sought to construct a farm road, an archaeological survey identified features warranting further investigation. Through Section 106 consultation, the site’s significance was understood to extend beyond physical archaeological remains to include oral traditions and the landscape’s historical associations.
Ultimately, the farm road could proceed while preserving the site’s cultural significance. Consultation not only assesses potential impacts on cultural heritage but also provides opportunities to learn about the heritage itself, revealing significance that might otherwise remain undocumented. Srungansralu illustrates a particular strength of Section 106: how meaningful consultation brings community knowledge into project planning, allowing infrastructure needs and the protection of irreplaceable cultural heritage to be sustainably addressed together.
Fort Benning’s Dexter Elementary School underscores how the Section 106 process results in better project outcomes. Since 2006, Fort Benning has used an Army Alternate Procedure (AAP) (one of only two Army installations nationwide to do so), facilitating a two-way flow of communication with stakeholders about projects, concerns, and solutions.
Fort Benning’s cultural resources staff understand how the AAP is intended to work, apply it diligently, and engage SHPO and Tribal Historic Preservation Office (THPO) partners throughout the process. For this project, Fort Benning sought technical assistance from the SHPO, as provided for in the AAP, and the result is a final project that is substantially more compatible with the historic district where it will be located than the project as originally proposed.
This is exactly what the effective use of a Section 106 alternate procedure is supposed to accomplish: helping an agency identify concerns early and deliver a better project. The proposed elimination of AAPs for Army installations would remove a tool that is demonstrably working at Fort Benning.
The rehabilitation of the Acworth Rosenwald School is a clear example of how Section 106 consultation can improve a project rather than stand in its way. The HUD project, which would rehabilitate the historic school for use as a community space, initially resulted in a finding of adverse effect. Through consultation with the Georgia SHPO, the project scope and treatment measures were revised, allowing the project to move forward with a finding of no adverse effect while meeting the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards.
This is not an isolated example,in Cobb County alone, 395 HUD-funded projects were reviewed, with only six resulting in adverse effects, five of which were resolved through project revisions.
Statewide, since January 2020, the Georgia SHPO has conducted approximately 5,600 HUD-related reviews. Of equal importance, the SHPO average response time to an individual federal submittal over the past five years has been 21 days, regardless of the agency, project complexity, or type of review. The experience demonstrates that Section 106 can accommodate a large volume of federal projects efficiently while identifying the relatively small number of projects where historic resources warrant changes and helping those projects move forward with better outcomes.
University of Georgia’s FindIt! Survey Program is supported through a statewide programmatic agreement (PA) between USDA’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS), Georgia Transmission Corporation, and the Georgia SHPO.
This statewide cultural resources survey initiative trains the next generation of preservation professionals to identify and document historic resources. Students work alongside UGA faculty, GTC staff, preservation consultants, SHPO staff, and local communities. It underscores how Section 106 can transform mitigation into a long-term investment in preservation capacity and increase public knowledge. Learn more.
The same PA provides clear procedures for reviewing RUS-funded energy transmission projects, including identifying resources, assessing effects, and resolving adverse effects. During the 2025 energy emergency, RUS initially shifted projects to an expedited seven-day review process, including some already covered by the PA. RUS and the SHPO ultimately returned to the established PA process, demonstrating the value and efficiency of using existing programmatic tools.
Georgia’s statewide FHWA/USACE/GDOT PA provides another successful model, with a Cultural Resources Manual establishing expectations from early coordination through effects assessment and resolution of disagreements.
Updating a Modern Train Line in Chicago shows how early Section 106 consultation can aid in modernization of major infrastructure while preserving historic resources, including relocating the Vautravers Building and creating new public spaces beneath the tracks.
Camp Nelson National Monument demonstrates the uncovering and preservation of a National Treasure.
Camp Nelson was the largest Union supply depot in Kentucky and the third-largest recruitment and training center for African American troops during the Civil War. Despite its national significance, much of the site’s archaeological importance was unknown until Section 106 investigations were conducted in advance of an AT&T transmission line easement and the realignment of U.S. Route 27.
Rather than delaying these transportation and utility projects, the Section 106 process enabled archaeologists to identify, document, and preserve one of the nation’s most significant Civil War landscapes while allowing development to proceed. Investigations uncovered barracks, hospitals, fortifications, industrial facilities, and the Home for Colored Refugees, providing invaluable new insights into military operations, the daily lives of Union soldiers and U.S. Colored Troops, and the experiences of formerly enslaved men, women, and children who sought freedom at Camp Nelson.
Because Section 106 required these investigations before construction, an extraordinary chapter of American history was documented and preserved for future generations. Today, Camp Nelson is protected as a National Monument and stands as one of the nation’s premier Civil War archaeological sites, demonstrating how Section 106 can advance both infrastructure projects and the preservation of nationally significant historic resources. Learn more from the National Park Service.
March 5, 2024; 1981 image, via The Baltimore Sun
The Double T Diner underscores how consultation can bring a historic property’s significance into sharper focus.
Located along U.S. 40 in Catonsville, Maryland, the diner is not instinctively recognizable as a nationally significant historic site. Heavily altered and located at a busy commercial intersection, it was initially determined to be ineligible for the National Register during planning for a federally funded highway safety project.
Section 106 consultation prompted a closer look. In 1961, African diplomats traveling between Washington, D.C., and New York were refused service at segregated establishments along U.S. 40, creating an international embarrassment during the Cold War. The Double T was also a site of protests and arrests as civil rights activists challenged segregation along the route.
Rather than focusing solely on the building’s physical alterations, consultation led to reconsideration of the property’s eligibility in light of its known Civil Rights significance and the rarity of surviving sites connected to the Route 40 protests. The property was ultimately determined eligible, and because the proposed improvements would not alter the diner’s overall appearance, setting, or the characteristics that made it eligible, the highway safety project proceeded with a No Adverse Effect finding.
The consultation also helped spur Maryland’s statewide Civil Rights Context for its roads, improving identification of similar resources in future projects.
Wadaag Commons demonstrates how Section 106 can help communities understand and preserve their history while allowing important projects (including much-needed affordable housing) can move forward with thoughtful consultation and planning.
In 2023, Minneapolis developers proposed a new mixed-income, six-story, 39-unit apartment building, as the first affordable housing in the Seward neighborhood designed for large families in more than two decades. Because the project used federal funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, it required Section 106 review.
During consultation, Minnesota SHPO staff noted that former historic structures appeared on century-old maps of the property. Archaeologists investigated and uncovered a remarkable archaeological site. A Memorandum of Agreement allowed archaeologists to recover information and conduct onsite monitoring while allowing construction to continue.
Historical research connected recovered artifacts — including a 1906 Midt Sommer Fest token and a German mineral water bottle — to early neighborhood residents, including the Deblon family. Findings were shared with the neighborhood association, sparking further conversations about preserving community history. Interpretive panels installed in the new building now share these stories with residents.
Images courtesy of St. Louis Public Radio
The discovery of the First Evidence of French Colonial Homes in St. Louis shows how the Section 106 process facilitates identification of previously unknown sites which otherwise would never have been found.
In 2014, archaeologists with the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) uncovered the first physical evidence of an 18th century French settlement in downtown St. Louis, near the Gateway Arch. The discovery was made during archaeological investigations conducted in preparation for federally funded pavement and decking repairs on the Poplar Street Bridge, a 647-foot deck girder bridge that crosses the Mississippi River.
Deployed to conduct a survey beneath the bridge, MoDOT archaeologists identified evidence of a former French colonial home constructed with vertical wood posts. Archival research helped identify the structure as a poteaux-en-terre, or “posts-in-ground,” home built around 1769 by Joseph Bouchard. Archaeologists also recovered a ceramic fragment and other artifacts associated with another home site.
This discovery was significant, as it dispelled the long-held assumption that all physical remnants of 18th century French Colonial life in St. Louis had been completely erased through the course of 19th and 20th century development.
The Preservation of Green’s Mill Bridge demonstrates how Section 106 can bring communities, agencies, and developers together to find solutions that preserve historic resources while allowing projects to move forward.
Green’s Mill Bridge is a 1933 suspension bridge spanning the Little Niangua River, an arm of the Lake of the Ozarks. One of five bridges that were built in the 1930s to accommodate motorists around the newly created lake system, it is the only one that remains. The bridge was determined eligible for the National Register of Historic Places as a nationally significant example of a self-anchored suspension bridge.
When the Federal Highway Administration and Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) began construction on a replacement bridge in 2020, the Section 106 process provided an opportunity to consider the future of the historic structure. Through MoDOT’s Historic Bridge Program, the bridge was made available for adaptive reuse.
In 2023, Green’s Mill Historical Bridge, Inc., a grassroots organization formed to save the bridge, acquired it and successfully preserved it in place for pedestrian use. Section 106 did not require that the bridge be preserved; it created a process for identifying its significance, considering alternatives, and giving the public a meaningful opportunity to help shape the outcome. The result was a new bridge for motorists — and a preserved historic bridge for the community. Further reading: Green’s Mill Bridge – An Engineering Treasure.
Fast and Flexible Consultation through the Section 106 process is demonstrated by the experience of Montana SHPO. From 2020–2025, Montana SHPO processed more than 4,400 projects, with an average response time of just 9.6 days.
The office has built efficiency into the process through technology, expedited reviews, and Programmatic Agreements. Its paperless e106 system allows consulting parties to submit materials electronically and receive notifications about review status. Montana SHPO also routinely expedites reviews during emergencies: during a 2021 drought emergency, the office reviewed 343 USDA projects within 48 hours over a 90-day period.
Programmatic Agreements provide another powerful efficiency tool. Montana currently has 69 active PAs that establish clear expectations and allow eligible activities to proceed without case-by-case Section 106 review.
States like Montana are already demonstrating that technology, planning, and flexible agreements can make the process faster and more predictable.
Photo: US Army Corps of Engineers
Federal Columbia River Power System (FCRPS) demonstrates how Section 106 can be structured to support efficient decision-making across an enormous and complex infrastructure system.
In 2009, Montana SHPO, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal Historic Preservation Office, other state and Tribal partners, and four federal agencies developed a Programmatic Agreement covering a power system that provides roughly one-third of the Pacific Northwest’s electricity.
The agreement establishes a predictable framework for addressing cultural resources across the system while allowing agencies to move routine activities forward efficiently. It also creates meaningful opportunities for Tribal Nations to identify priorities, survey and document cultural sites, monitor conditions, and conduct elder-youth site visits.
The result is a model for efficient consultation at scale: rather than repeatedly starting from scratch, agencies and Tribal Nations established clear expectations, responsibilities, and mitigation measures in advance. Section 106 provided the framework for collaboration while the Programmatic Agreement provided the efficiency. Montana Project Review/Compliance.
Abbott Farm Watson’s Creek Shoreline Stabilization Project underscores how potential impacts can be addressed through consultation with Tribal Nations and other parties; in this case, addressing concerns and working with the County to develop a solution that stabilized a shoreline and protected an archaeological site.
Mercer County proposed a shoreline stabilization project within the boundaries of the Abbott Farm National Historic Landmark Historic District, one of New Jersey’s most significant archaeological districts. The district contains archaeological sites documenting thousands of years of human occupation, Lenape cross-cultural exchange across the Northeast, and complex regional ceramic traditions. It is also an area of great significance to the Delaware Nation, Delaware Tribe, Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Nation, Absentee-Shawnee Tribe, and Shawnee Tribe.
Erosion was threatening to destroy an archaeological site within the county park. The project originally proposed both a boat ramp for public access and a living shoreline to stabilize the area. With federal funding and permitting from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the project underwent Section 106 review, including consultation with all federally recognized Tribes.
Section 106 made it possible to identify concerns early, incorporate them into project planning, and move the project forward while avoiding further damage to significant archaeological resources.
TWA Terminal: A Modernist Icon to Flight Saved to Fly Another Day tells the story of Section 106 consultation uniting federal agencies and stakeholders in preserving an iconic Modernist landmark while enabling JFK Airport’s expansion and ultimately securing its adaptive reuse as the TWA Hotel.
Honey Springs Battlefield Pipeline provides an example of preserving history while delivering critical infrastructure.
When the proposed Diamond Pipeline required federal permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the planned route crossed the nationally significant Honey Springs Battlefield, a National Historic Landmark and the site of the largest Civil War battle fought in Indian Territory. While the Corps’ review focused only on water crossings, the Oklahoma SHPO identified that the proposed route would adversely affect the broader historic battlefield landscape.
Through the Section 106 consultation process, the SHPO, federal agency, and project sponsor worked together to find a better solution. Rather than halting the project, the pipeline was rerouted around the battlefield, preserving its archaeological resources and historic setting while allowing the pipeline to move forward.
This project demonstrates what Section 106 is designed to do: identify potential conflicts early, bring the right parties to the table, and develop practical solutions that balance infrastructure development with the protection of irreplaceable historic resources. Without Section 106, the battlefield could have suffered unnecessary damage with little opportunity to consider alternatives.
The First National Bank & Trust Building in Oklahoma City explores how a vacant landmark can be turned into an economic engine.
After sitting vacant for decades following Oklahoma’s oil and banking collapse of the 1980s, the historic First National Bank & Trust Building in downtown Oklahoma City was transformed into a vibrant mixed-use development with a hotel, apartments, restaurants, and retail space. The ambitious rehabilitation depended on a complex financing package that combined federal and state historic rehabilitation tax credits, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Brownfields funding, HUD assistance, and private investment.
Because multiple federal funding sources were involved, Section 106 consultation brought together the developer, the Oklahoma SHPO, HUD, EPA, and other partners to ensure the building’s defining historic features were preserved while meeting modern needs. The rehabilitation retained iconic spaces such as the Great Hall, decorative murals, ornate elevator doors, and historic vaults while sensitively adapting the building for new uses.
Section 106 did not create an obstacle to redevelopment — it provided the collaborative framework that helped coordinate agencies, resolve preservation issues, and unlock the financing needed to make the project feasible. Opened in 2022, the project demonstrates how Section 106 can catalyze investment, create jobs, revitalize downtowns, and preserve the historic places that define our communities.
Cantini’s Mosaic Tunnel demonstrates how Section 106 consultation can turn an initially planned loss into a preservation success—bringing agencies, experts, and advocates together to save, conserve, and relocate Pittsburgh’s historic tunnel for continued public use and appreciation.
the Puerto Rico garden
After a 2020 earthquake, the Ponce Museum of Art in Puerto Rico urgently needed a structural retrofit. The initial proposal would have significantly altered the Modern Movement building’s distinctive proportions, transparency, and lightness. Rather than allowing the need for expedited structural work to eliminate consideration of the building’s historic character, consultation brought the design and preservation teams together to find a better solution.
Through multiple rounds of consultation, the structural engineer and design team developed an approach that provided the seismic protection the building required while retaining its essential architectural character. The result demonstrates an important benefit of Section 106: consultation can identify problems early, bring the right expertise to the table, and lead to creative solutions that meet modern needs without unnecessarily sacrificing historic resources.
Section 106 helped this project move forward with a better design.
Project Commonwealth Heritage Group, 2022
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Savannah Harbor Expansion Project – During the federally funded Savannah Harbor dredging in 2021 and 2022, several Revolutionary War-era cannons were discovered.
A Programmatic Agreement among the Army Corps of Engineers and the South Carolina and Georgia SHPOs required an unanticipated-discoveries process, without which these irreplaceable artifacts could have been lost. The discovery underscores why Section 106 remains essential: historic resources are often unknown until a major infrastructure project encounters them. After years of careful conservation, the cannons went on public display at the Savannah History Museum in July 2026, turning a potential loss into a tangible public benefit.
The harbor project also resulted in recovery of the CSS Georgia as mitigation for adverse project effects, yielding extensive archaeological data on the ironclad and thousands of period artifacts including ordnance, machinery, and vessel structure. Read more in Smithsonian Magazine.
Setback Project. Credit: King County
The Lower Russell Levee Setback Project in Kent, Washington, shows how Section 106 consultation can help major infrastructure projects achieve multiple public benefits. The $58 million project replaced and upgraded 1.4 miles of levee, reconnected more than 40 acres of floodplain, and strengthened protection against flooding while restoring critical habitat.
Through consultation with the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, Suquamish Tribe, Snoqualmie Indian Tribe, Stillaguamish Tribe of Indians, Tulalip Tribes, and other partners, the project team identified ways to protect and honor the area’s cultural and historic resources. That collaboration helped integrate cultural preservation into the project’s design and implementation rather than treating it as an afterthought.
The project received the 2024 King County Executive’s John D. Spellman Award for Exemplary Achievement in Historic Preservation in recognition of how effective consultation can make infrastructure projects better for communities, the environment, and cultural heritage.
Image: The Alexander Company
The preservation of “Old Main” at the Milwaukee Soldiers Home campus demonstrates the value of collaboration at the heart of the Section 106 process.
The Civil War-era Milwaukee Soldiers Home, part of a National Historic Landmark, faced significant deterioration and underuse by 2010. To determine the future of the historic campus, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs engaged in Section 106 consultation with the Wisconsin SHPO, the National Park Service (NPS), ACHP, local preservation organizations, veterans’ groups, and other stakeholders.
That collaboration helped produce a public-private partnership that used historic tax credits to rehabilitate the campus’s historic buildings. In March 2021, Old Main and five other historic buildings (many of which had been abandoned or underutilized), reopened to serve veterans, including through critically needed housing.
This is Section 106 at its best: bringing the right people to the table early, identifying what matters, and finding a solution that advances the federal agency’s mission while preserving important historic resources. The process did not stand in the way of the VA’s mission—it helped make a better outcome possible.
Photo: Wisconsin Historical Society
Road America grew out of a remarkable piece of local history. Beginning in 1950, sports car enthusiasts held popular races on the roads surrounding Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. In 1955, the Sports Car Club of America created Road America, an off-road course modeled on that original circuit. The racing legacy remains an important part of the community’s identity.
When WisDOT later planned improvements to roads that formed part of the original race circuit, the project team initially focused on buildings and did not recognize the historic significance of the roads themselves. Local residents and a Road America friends’ group brought that missing history to the table through the Section 106 process.
With a fuller understanding of the resource, WisDOT was able to modernize the roads while preserving important character-defining features. The Elkhart Lake Road Race Circuit was subsequently listed in the National Register, and that early work has helped subsequent projects move more efficiently through Section 106.
The lesson is straightforward: consultation can uncover information agencies do not have. In this case, that local knowledge helped WisDOT stay on track.