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Local News - April 2002 |
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Expert to speak on NC’s character Historic Preservation Week: By JACQUELINE CASEY, LTN Staff Writer April 29, 2002 - When Michael Southern visits Lincolnton next month he will note the buildings, the businesses, the streets, and the residents. But he will not consider them individually. Instead, he will appreciate them as components of a complex work of art. “The character of a place is a tapestry woven of many threads,” he says. “It’s always framed within the land and water, the soil and climate, the crops and the resources that provide people with the means to make a living and build communities and from the ways those communities are connected to each other and to the outside world.” Southern, a research historian with the State Historic Preservation Office, will speak about this broad look at North Carolina’s character in Lincolnton on Monday, May 13 at a Dinner Gala celebrating Historic Preservation Week, May 12-18. The dinner is at 6:30 p.m. at the Lincoln Cultural Center, 403 E. Main Street. Tickets, at $15 each, are available through the Business and Community Development office at 704-736-8915. Reservations are required. Using slides providing examples from across the state, Southern will talk about the elements — or “threads” — which give communities their character. “You can’t pull one thread without all the others unraveling around it,” Southern says. Well-acquainted with Lincoln County — he has made many research visits to the area — Southern’s presentation will include some discussion of local landmarks. Southern has worked with the state’s archives and historic preservation programs for 27 years, participating in field surveys of historic buildings in all 100 North Carolina counties, working as a preservation specialist with the Western Office of Archives and History in Asheville and with the Survey and Planning Branch, which coordinates the statewide survey of historic buildings and the National Register of Historic Places program. He has also co-authored two books: “A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Eastern North Carolina” and “A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Western North Carolina.” A third, a volume on the Piedmont which will include many Lincoln County historical sites, is scheduled to be published in the spring of 2003. Though his job title is historic preservationist, Southern says he prefers to call himself a “historical geographer” — someone who studies each section of the state relates and how it relates to others. Southern backed into his profession, first studying design and art history in the early 1970s with the intent of becoming an architect. A chance photography job with the Office of Archives and History was the introduction to what would become his career. Southern hopes to share his enthusiasm and appreciation for his native state’s rich heritage when he visits Lincolnton. “I am a provincial North Carolinian who only leaves the state under gun point,” he says.
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© 2001 Lincoln Times-News |
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