On June 30th, Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior, approved the addition of Congressional Cemetery to the Register of National Historic Landmarks.

National Historic Landmarks are buildings, sites, districts, structures, and objects that have been determined by the Secretary of the Interior to be nationally significant in American history and culture. Many of the most renowned historic properties in the nation are Landmarks.  Congressional Cemetery shares this designation with the Capitol, White House, Supreme Court, and Washington Monument.

For HCC, the process of achieving landmark status was a long one.  Our application, a 53-page thesis, exhaustively researched and written by Julia Sienkewicz, was first submitted in 2007.  Sienkewicz actually lived in the gatehouse while she was conducting her research.  "It it so nice to see the cemetery get the recognition it deserves,” she said.  “Anyone who spends any time at Congressional knows it’s a national treasure.”

Landmark status means more than just a bronze plaque.  The National Park Service provides technical preservation advice to owners of National Historic Landmarks.  NPS also provides a wealth of information on preservation issues.  And of course, HCC will be added to the prestigious list of National Landmarks at www.nps.gov, joining historic sites as diverse as Boston’s Old North Church, New Mexico’s Los Alamos Laboratory, and William Faulkner’s house in Oxford, Mississippi.