State and Regional Guidelines for Determinations of Eligibility for Recent Past Resources:

Colorado

The publication, How to Apply the Nomination Criteria for the Colorado State Register of Historic Properties, includes the attached in relation to the recent past. Much of the information is a reworking of the National Register Criteria Consideration G to the exclusion of specific time constraints.

Properties that Have Achieved Significance Within the Recent Past

A property achieving significance within the recent past is eligible if a sufficient historic context exists to permit the evaluation of the resource.

The State Register recognizes historic properties. Properties associated with events and persons from the recent past are difficult to evaluate objectively. History repeatedly demonstrates that an event which seemed to be of paramount importance at its occurrence proved to be of little consequence in the larger course of subsequent events. Other events, hardly noticed at their occurrence, proved to be of great influence on the course of future activities. Finally, there are those events that were generally recognized as important at their occurrence, but which turned out to have long term consequences varying greatly from that expected .

A sufficient amount of time must have elapsed since the event to allow the development of a historical perspective to facilitate the evaluation of significance. This consideration guards against the listing of properties of passing contemporary interest and ensures that the State Register is a list of truly historic properties. For some events the passage of 20 or 30 years may provide sufficient chronological distance to permit thoughtful evaluation. For other events, 50 or 60 years may be necessary. Generally, the closer an event dates to the present, the more difficult will be the evaluation of such an event and thus more care will be taken in listing associated properties in the State Register.

Examples of properties that have achieved significance within the recent past requiring special consideration:

· A property of recent construction.

· A property that continues to achieve significance into the recent past.

· An older property that is significant for associations that occurred in the recent past.

Examples of properties that have achieved significance within the recent past not requiring special consideration:

· A historic district in which a few properties are of recent construction, but the majority of properties and the time at which the significance occurred are of greater age.

Rare Surviving Resources

Certain categories of resources are so fragile that survivors of any age are unusual. If significant examples are to be preserved, they must be identified and evaluated early in their life. However, just because a group of properties tend not to survive in an unaltered state, does not automatically make that group or individual members of that group historically significant. Appropriate evaluation is still necessary.

Historical Perspective

A property that has achieved significance within the recent past can be evaluated only when sufficient historical perspective exists to determine that the property is exceptionally important. The necessary perspective can be provided by scholarly research and evaluation, and must consider both the historic context and the specific property's role in that context.

In many communities, properties such as apartment buildings built in the 1950s and 1960s cannot be evaluated because there is no scholarly research available to provide an overview of the nature, role, and impact of that building type within the context of historical and architectural developments of the 1950s and 1960s.

Eligibility for Information Potential

A property that has achieved significance in the recent past can qualify under Criterion E only if it can be demonstrated that the information is of importance within the appropriate context and that the property contains data superior to or different from those obtainable from other sources, including other culturally related sites. An archaeological site of the recent past may be eligible if the former inhabitants are so poorly documented that information about their lifeways is best obtained from examination of the material remains.

Historic Districts

Properties which have achieved significance within the recent past can be eligible for the State Register if they are an integral part of a district which qualifies for State Register listing. This is demonstrated by documenting that the property dates from within the time period when the district achieved its significance and that it is associated with one or more of the district's defined Areas of Significance.

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