(By Historian Lila Hill and HPC Commissioner Frank Thomason)
May is National Historic Preservation month. On Thursday, May 12th, the Meridian Historic Preservation Commission will sponsor the Chamber of Commerce Business After Hours from 5:30-7:00 p.m. on the first floor of City Hall, in- and outside the History Center. All through the month of May, the local weekly, Valley Times, will print features about several of the Meridian buildings on the National Register of Historic Places.
The center has new, expanded hours of 10:00 a.m.-noon on Monday and Tuesday, and from 1:00-3:00 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday. It is staffed by volunteers from the Meridian Historical Society and works closely with the Historic Preservation Commission.
The commission is responsible for nominations to the national register of buildings that are 50 years old and still as they were built originally with some community history connected with the building or the family or business that occupied them.
The commission operates under the federal guidelines, which require that members must meet one of several history-related criteria to be nominated to the commission and confirmed by the City Council.
The Meridian commission plans to sponsor a bus tour of the historic center or heart of Meridian during Dairy Days as the local observance of historic preservation, combining the celebration of Meridian’s Dairy heritage with the original area of Meridian when it was a village.