What Historic Preservation Is All About

Historic preservation is not just saving a historically or architecturally significant building in your community. Though most people think of restoration as historic preservation, the real meaning of historic preservation lies within the community as a whole: people, places, and ideas.

Historic preservation often comes in many forms such as the celebration of events or holidays, individuals we are proud of, places we cherish, and ideas that change our way of doing things. Other times it can be the recognition of moments in our history that may be painful or uncomfortable to remember.

The Sharon Historical Society focuses its efforts on historic preservation in a few ways. These are the restoration, preservation, and tasteful rehabilitation of historically or architecturally significant buildings or homes, the encouragement of celebrations of all ethnic or religious groups as a means of cultural heritage, and the remembrance of those who have come before us, who have shaped Sharon, Pennsylvania - and the Shenango Valley - whether they are average citizens or movers and shakers, they all make up the fabric of our local history.

History In Headlines: Saving & Digitizing Our City’s Newspapers Capital Campaign

Bill Cowan has been an avid historian and an integral part of the Sharon Historical Society since its founding in 2013. His historical expertise not only comes from living in Sharon since birth but also from countless hours of research and reading.

The Sharon Historical Society was fortunate enough to be at the right place at the right time when the local library was ready to dispose of dozens of HUGE bound copies of the Sharon Herald newspaper from 1909 through 1949. Through the efforts of Mike Kotyk, treasurer, and Bill Cowan, these valuable pieces of Shenango Valley history have been preserved for future generations.

The Society is pleased to announce our newest capital campaign, “History In Headlines: Saving & Digitizing Our City’s Newspapers” with a fundraising goal of $25,000. Funds collected for this initiative will be used to purchase state-of-the-art digitization equipment, that is specially designed to preserve historic bound volumes, whether it is books, magazines, deeds, maps, or other bound resources — especially our collection of over 140 bound Sharon Herald newspaper volumes from 1909 through 1949.

We hope to begin digitizing these volumes for our researchers and the public. Our ultimate goal would be to have these crucial resources searchable by our researchers and the public, much like those that appear on Newspapers.com. With this state-of-the-art equipment, the Society would be able to do work for hire, assisting other organizations in digitization through donations to help us continue our own mission.

This equipment is rather large so we are exploring partnerships with other regional museum facilities in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio that may be able to work with us in a co-ownership of the equipment and housing it to benefit us and other organizations in the Shenango and Mahoning valley region.

Click here to make a financial donation to this important project!