Historic Resource Studies are important documents for national park and region managers and staff. They're a primary resource for understanding a park's history and for inventorying all park cultural resources. The Park History Program works with national parks and regions to review new or updated existing Historic Resource Studies and provide guidance as needed.
For NPS Staff and Partners
Please visit the Historic Resource Studies page on InsideNPS
What's an Historic Resource Study?
An Historic Resource Study (HRS) is an NPS baseline report that's intended to provide a park or region with both an historical overview and an inventory of all cultural resources above and below ground within the park boundaries or regional geographic areas. An HRS is both a powerful cultural resource management and preservation tool and a valuable resource for interpretation, visitor education, and historical research.
For a park, the study area of an HRS is the entire boundary of the park, as opposed to a smaller internal area or a single cultural resource like those found in National Register nominations. It generally does not include cultural resources outside of its boundaries.
For an NPS region, the study area may be the entire region, a subset of the region, or a larger geographic area such as one or more states.
Other History Studies
For studies that focus solely on the specific history of a topic, theme, resource, event. time period see: Special History Studies.
For legislative and administrative histories of parks, programs, regions, or the National Park Service see: Administrative Histories.
Purposes of an Historic Resource Study
- a primary cultural resource management tool for a park or region
- a reference document that can used by all park or region staff
- an information resource for park Section 106 and Section 110 activities, National Register of Historic Places nominations, and Interpretation and Education
- creates an inventory of cultural resources from across all park or region disciplines
- provides an historical overview for a park or region
- evaluates cultural resources using the historic contexts within the historical overview
- allows both the historical overview and cultural resource inventory to be readily available in one easily accessible document
- identifies additional documentation needs
- helps management and staff with park planning, interpretation and visitor education, historic preservation, resource protection, and maintenance.
Additional Documentation Needs
An HRS can also help identify any need for additional documentation or updates to existing documentation such as:
- Administrative Histories | Cultural Landscape Inventories
- Cultural Landscape Reports | Cultural Resources Base Maps
- Historic Structure Reports | Long Range Interpretive Plans
- Park Management Plans | Park NR/NHL Landmark nominations
- Preservation Maintenance Plans | Special History Studies
Historic Resource Studies Online
- To read an Historic Resource Study, scroll through the list below and click on an HRS Title. This will take you to the NPS IRMA Data Repository where you can read the document's citation and open its digital file.
Source: Data Store Collection 9184. To search for additional information, visit the Data Store.
Last updated: April 16, 2024