| The Historic American Buildings Survey |
| The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) is a national program created to assemble a comprehensive record of the building arts in the United States. Formally organized as a co-operative effort of the National Park Service, the Library of Congress, and the American Institute of Architects, the Surveywhich has just commemorated its fortieth anniversaryis the federal government's oldest operative historic preservation program. |
| Although early HABS recording in Tennessee did not delve deeply into the state's rich architectural patrimony, the geographical distribution was well balanced. Log and stone structures characteristic of the eastern third of the state, as well as imposing antebellum mansions of West and Middle Tennessee, such as the Hermitage, were recorded in the 1930s. Perhaps the most impressive early recording effort resulted in a set of twenty-three sheets of architectural measured drawings of William Strickland's State Capitol in Nashville. |
| World War II forced a temporary halt to the Survey's active recording program throughout the country. By the late 1950s, however, several significant additionsprimarily photographs and written historical and descriptive datawere made to the HABS Tennessee collection at the Library of Congress. During this period important measured drawings were also made of the President Andrew Johnson House in Greeneville and of several structures in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, as part of the National Park Service's "Mission 66" program which was initiated in 1957. Many records were obtained on structures in the historic town of Greeneville which, collectively, give an idea of the character of the community. These records in a way may be regarded as a prototype of the urban neighborhood and area surveys that HABS frequently conducts today. |
| While some additional recording of historic Tennessee buildings took place in the 1960s, it was not until the 1970s that one of the Survey's most intensive statewide recording efforts was organized. Discussions leading to this ambitious project were initiated in 1969 by William T. Alderson, then a member of the HABS Advisory Board and Director of the American Association for State and Local History. As the program evolved, the Tennessee Historical Commission, local historical groups, and the Survey entered into co-operative agreements to record historic Tennessee structures. Five summer projects, from 1970 to 1974, were scheduled. The first, in 1970, was centered in Nashville and its immediate vicinity. Sponsored by the Commission, the Historic Sites Federation of Tennessee, and HABS, the project included several mid- and late-nineteenth-century commercial structuresa building type heretofore unrecorded in the state. |
| In 1971, the Middle Tennessee project was undertaken. This survey concentrated on many of the large antebellum mansions of the central section of the state. In 1972, the West Tennessee Historical Society joined the Commission and the Survey in sponsoring the West Tennessee project. Headquartered at Memphis State University, the team produced documentary records for several late-nineteenth-century churches and domestic structures in Memphis, Savannah, Bolivar, and LaGrange. |
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