PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Presque Isle Historical Society was just recently informed that both its Maysville Museum and The 1875 Vera Estey House Museum have been accepted as Distinctive Destinations, a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. A first for northern Maine. At present, the only other building in Maine in the program is Portland’s Longfellow House.
Photos of Vera Estey and her father John Estey line the walls of the dining room at the 1875 Vera Estey House.
(Melissa Lizotte)
Both sites will be listed on the Distinctive Destinations website which has had over 60,000 views since its launch. The program and its listings will be featured in an ad in the Winter issue of Preservation magazine, can be found through GoogleAds, touted in blurbs in the National Trust email newsletters, promoted on the homepage of SavingsPlaces.org, and emailed out to National Trust’s base of 300,000 supporters.
“In other words,” said Kim Smith, Secretary/Treasurer of Presque Isle Historical Society and the person who lobbied the National Trust for this designation, “this is HUGE! We finally have made it to the national spotlight. We are told that more sites and features will continue to be added in the coming months.”
Maysville Museum today.
(Contributed photo)
According to the National Trust, “The intent of the Distinctive Destinations program is to bring historic sites together into a marketing collaborative to drive awareness for these historic places.” As such, Presque Isle Historical Society had to meet the National Trust’s standards for visitation and interpretation. Some of these included: the site is interpreted for the public benefit in a manner that makes it meaningful and accessible to multiple and broad audiences and provides a fair and balanced presentation of the specific historic topic; it must be open to the public via tours and events on a regular schedule; the Society had to have a website; the Society has to have historic designation at national, state or local level and/or a positive ranking on GuideStar or Charity Navigator; positive TripAdvisor and/or Yelp reviews; the site(s) must be operated in a manner that is consistent with the mission and the values of the National Trust; and the Society had to agree to terms and conditions of the program.
The mission of Presque Isle Historical Society, a 501c3 non-profit founded in 1963, is to study, promote and preserve the history, culture, heritage and physical artifacts of Presque Isle for future and present generations. For more information on its programs or to make a tax deductible contribution, visit them on the web at www.pihistory.org.
The Maysville Museum is now home to three new Civil War artifacts: a 74-page diary from Harrison Robinson, dated from 1861 and 1866, a letter written by Robinson to his father and a Henry Aston Model 1842 Flintlock military pistol.
(Staff Photo/Melissa Lizotte)
