Now in its 38th year, the National Trust’s annual list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places has proven to be a highly effective tool for shining a light on the threats facing our nation’s greatest treasures. Due to the efforts of the National Trust and its passionate supporters, the ongoing initiative has galvanized public support behind more than 350 sites to date with only a handful lost.

The 11 Most Endangered program uplifts and catalyzes community-led preservation work through a high-impact public awareness campaign resulting in increased visibility, public attention, and new resources to save and activate historic places for the public good.

This year’s list exemplifies how preservation is about creating something new, spotlighting efforts to repurpose historic buildings and activate them to serve their communities in new ways. The collection of places on this list also helps illustrate how resilience and recovery are intertwined with preservation and emphasizes the economic benefits that come with revitalization.

Cedar Key, Florida

Cedar Key is an archipelago of small islands in the Big Bend region of Florida’s Gulf Coast, with a population of around 700 people and a natural landscape of wetlands and low-lying woodlands. The human history of Cedar Key includes early Paleo-Indian activity, including by the Timucua people, and providing shelter for 18th century Spanish sailors. Cedar Key represents an increasingly rare example of “Old Florida,” commonly described as small coastal communities based on a mix of fishing, local business, and small-scale, affordable tourist accommodations.

In September 2024, Hurricane Helene brought a record storm surge to Cedar Key that washed historic wood frame homes into the Gulf, decimated the waterfront area, and damaged the post office and old city hall. Cedar Key has been impacted by other major storms in the past, including Hurricane Hermine in 2016. In addition to severe weather, Cedar Key is being affected by sea level rise. Data projections show that Cedar Key will experience significantly increased flooding risks in coming decades, endangering the shops, restaurants, and tourist areas along the downtown waterfront, as well as infrastructure vital to the clamming industry.

Recovery from Hurricane Helene is currently underway but is likely to take years. In the meantime, adaptation is necessary to prepare for the future. The Florida Trust for Historic Preservation and the University of Florida were already working with the City of Cedar Key to provide planning, research, and technical assistance, including a Resilient Cedar Key Adaptation Plan completed just before Hurricane Helene hit, recommending solutions like elevating and wet-proofing historic buildings, improving drainage to protect a historic cemetery, and using nature-based “living shoreline” approaches to reduce the impacts of storm surges. As recovery continues, Cedar Key will require consistent support and resources to ensure the future of this historic community.

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French Broad and Swannanoa River Corridors, Western North Carolina

The French Broad and Swannanoa Rivers cross a mountainous region in western North Carolina. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Asheville became a major industrial, economic, artistic, and tourist hub. Small towns along the French Broad and Swannanoa Rivers, such as Marshall, Swannanoa, and Chimney Rock, each have unique histories of their own, with roots in agriculture, industry, and tourism. Today, the French Broad and Swannanoa River corridors continue to be integral to the region’s vibrant arts and tourism economy.

Tropical Storm Helene made landfall along the Florida Gulf Coast as a Category 4 hurricane on September 26, 2024. During the storm, the French Broad River crested at 24.67 feet, and the Swannanoa River hit 27.33 feet, breaking a 100-year-old record. Historic structures and communities along the rivers suffered significant damage, including the River Arts District and Biltmore Village in Asheville and nearby towns like Swannanoa. Previously, Asheville and Western North Carolina had been considered a “climate haven,” not susceptible to these types of severe weather disasters. However, Tropical Storm Helene's devastation underscores the area’s vulnerability to natural disasters.

Many affected properties were not in flood zones and lacked insurance, compounding recovery challenges. Communities are struggling to rebuild and wondering how they can prepare for the future. While recovery is underway and local organizations like the Preservation Society of Asheville & Buncombe County are leading preservation efforts, funding for historic structures and communities along the hard-hit river corridors is still urgently needed, as well as support for preservation-based resiliency planning. Bringing national attention, renewed tourism, and continued resources and support can help impacted communities recover and rebuild with a focus on preservation and resiliency, to ensure a thriving future.

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Hotel Casa Blanca, Idlewild, Michigan

Hotel Casa Blanca played a significant cultural role in the historic Black resort community of Idlewild, Michigan. Designed and built by Black architect Woolsey Coombs in 1949, Hotel Casa Blanca served as a premier lodging site for African American travelers, entertainers, entrepreneurs and thought leaders during segregation, and was included in The Negro Motorist Green Book. Known as “Black Eden,” by the 1950s Idlewild drew thousands of annual visitors, and Hotel Casa Blanca hosted performances by legendary African American artists like Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, and Aretha Franklin.

After integration, like many formerly segregated Black resorts, Idlewild experienced lower visitation and economic disinvestment. Today, the historic resort community has a population of around 700 residents, and Hotel Casa Blanca has been vacant and deteriorating for over 30 years.

With hopes of saving the building, the previous owner of Hotel Casa Blanca sold it to 1st Neighbor LLC, a Black woman-led nonprofit. 1st Neighbor plans to rehabilitate the hotel into a bed-and-breakfast including overnight suites, meeting spaces, and a heritage and learning center, and has taken crucial steps towards restoration, including removal of hazardous material and developing architectural plans for reuse. Grants from the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund of the National Trust and others have provided seed funding, but an additional $5 million is needed to complete rehabilitation so that the Hotel Casa Blanca can serve its community by providing much needed lodging, event space, and economic opportunities.

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May Hicks Curtis House, Flagstaff, Arizona

Known as the “Betsy Ross” of Arizona, May Hicks Curtis sewed the first Arizona state flag in 1911. Located just off the original 1920s alignment of Route 66 in Flagstaff, the May Hicks Curtis House was built in 1913 by May adjacent to two boarding houses operated by May and her mother that likely served early Route 66 travelers. May lived in the house for decades, and as the property most closely associated with her legacy, the house represents her active community involvement and contributions to Arizona’s history. May participated in Flagstaff’s Women’s Club and the Arizona Historical Society, among numerous other organizations, and devoted her life to improving her city and her state. She also carved out her role in Arizona's history by co-creating the largest existing collection of pre-WWII photographs of Flagstaff with her first husband Frank Curtis.

New development is moving forward on the lot where the May Hicks Curtis house has stood since its construction. Relocation of the house is the only way to prevent demolition, but only temporary locations are currently available. Funding will be necessary to move the house to a permanent location, then rehabilitate the house.

Recognizing its significance, the City of Flagstaff has taken ownership of the May Hicks Curtis House and is moving the building to a temporary location. The City hopes to raise public awareness and seek new partnerships for rehabilitating, interpreting, and activating the house. Future uses could include serving as municipal offices or providing publicly accessible community space, along with public interpretation of the importance of May Hicks Curtis’s contributions to Flagstaff’s history.

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Mystery Castle, Phoenix, Arizona

Mystery Castle was constructed circa 1934-1945 by Boyce Luther Gulley, who built the complex by hand for his daughter Mary Lou without plans, permits, or formal architectural or engineering training. Gulley melded organic architecture and folk art, inspired by local materials in the Sonoran Desert and Indigenous cultures of the American Southwest and Mexico, and incorporated recycled or rejected objects to build an 18-room multi-story structure that has survived in the harsh Arizona desert climate for almost a century. After Gulley’s death in 1945, Mary Lou and her mother, Frances, dedicated their lives to maintaining, operating, promoting, and preserving Mystery Castle as their home and a nationally known tourist attraction featured in LIFE magazine.

Before Mary Lou died in 2010, she created a small local foundation entrusted with preserving Mystery Castle, but vandalism and multiple break-ins caused extensive damage, and the foundation now does not have the resources to maintain or operate the property, which is also under threat of increasingly encroaching suburban development. Lacking other options for protecting or operating the property and hoping to engage potential partners to find a solution, the foundation applied for a demolition permit after consultation with the City of Phoenix Historic Preservation Office.

As expected, the City of Phoenix denied the permit, resulting in a one year stay of demolition to provide time for advocates to explore preservation alternatives. The Phoenix Historic Preservation Office hired a consultant to conduct a conditions assessment with recommendations for stabilization and public accessibility upgrades. Preserve Phoenix and a new “Friends of Mystery Castle” group are leading a grassroots effort to save the building, but additional partners and supporters will be needed to prevent demolition and ensure a publicly accessible reuse for this unique art environment.

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Oregon Caves Chateau, Cave Junction, Oregon

The Oregon Caves Chateau, located within the Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve, has significantly benefitted the rural economy of nearby Cave Junction and surrounding communities for 91 years. Since its construction in 1934, the Chateau has offered overnight lodging and concessions to visitors from across the United States and worldwide. The National Historic Landmark Chateau exemplifies rustic "Parkitecture" by integrating architecture with nature using local wood and stone, featuring unique elements including a dining room with a stream running through it and many original furnishings, including the most extensive public collection of historic Monterey furniture in the United States. As the only lodging of its kind in the region, the Chateau is an economic driver for this rural, underserved area; providing jobs, supporting businesses, and boosting tourism focused on heritage and the natural environment.

In 2018, The Oregon Caves Chateau was closed by its owner, the National Park Service, to undertake extensive restoration work addressing structural deterioration, deferred maintenance, and the need to meet modern safety and accessibility standards. However, additional unplanned structural and seismic upgrades have caused the total project cost to increase dramatically.

The ongoing closure of the Chateau is significantly impacting the local economy and the region, and the community is concerned that a prolonged closure could leave the Chateau vulnerable to weather damage and deterioration. The Friends of the Oregon Caves and Chateau have convened a Blue Ribbon Committee of elected officials and key stakeholders including Restore Oregon and the National Parks Conservation Association to raise awareness and assist with public-private fundraising. Restoration and reopening of the Chateau will support its vital role in fostering economic vitality and heritage tourism for Oregon.

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Pamunkey Indian Reservation, King William, Virginia

The Pamunkey people have lived in Tsennacommacah, on and around the lands now known as the Pamunkey Indian Reservation in Virginia, for at least 15,000 years. The Pamunkey Indian Tribe, a federally recognized sovereign Tribal nation, has never ceded their 1600-acre peninsula on the Pamunkey River, making it the oldest extant Reservation in the country. Pamunkey people, including Wahunsenecawh (Chief Powhatan) and Pocahontas, were among the first to encounter Europeans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and have remained on their Ancestral land ever since.

Pamunkey tribal lands are highly vulnerable to the impacts of sea level rise and increasing storm frequency and severity, as well as land subsidence. The Reservation is surrounded by the Pamunkey River and marshlands on three sides and a sinking railroad embankment on the fourth. Sea level rise threatens numerous archeological sites and multiple historic buildings and homes of reservation residents, as well as traditional food and medicine plants, clay deposits that have been used by potters for centuries, and aquatic wildlife like shad and sturgeon that Pamunkey fishermen have been catching for generations.

The Tribe has created a Community Disaster Resilience Zone and has begun shoreline stabilization work such as plantings of native grasses and trees to slow erosion and reduce the impact of storms, but scientists still project that most Reservation land will be underwater and inaccessible within 75 years. Funding and support will be needed to expand resilience efforts, preserve historic buildings on the reservation, and conduct in-depth archaeological research. Recognizing that active habitation of Reservation lands may no longer be possible in the future, the Tribe believes it is important to document and record tribal history and traditions and think about how to carry heritage and memory forward in new ways.

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San Juan Hotel, San Juan, Texas

The San Juan Hotel has a long and complicated history in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and is one of the area’s most recognizable landmarks. The hotel was originally built in 1920 to serve Anglo businessmen and political figures moving into the largely Mexican American area and was re-faced in the Mission Revival style in 1928. The hotel was built at the height of what historians refer to as “La Matanza” or “The Slaughter,” a period of anti-Mexican violence in Texas, often committed by Anglo-Texan vigilantes and law enforcement, which included massacres and lynchings. Oral histories relay that the San Juan Hotel was used as a site of lynchings, as it is located along the main road dividing the Anglo neighborhood from the Mexican American neighborhood. The San Juan Hotel is one of the only remaining historic structures in the community and is registered as a landmark at the state level.

However, the hotel has been vacant for years and is severely deteriorating. The building is under threat of demolition as the City of San Juan considers a new downtown master plan.

Local community members have organized to form an advocacy group called “Save the San Juan Hotel Initiative,” supported by the Hidalgo County Historical Commission. They hope to work with the City to investigate the feasibility of rehabilitating the building. In an underserved and predominantly Mexican American community, local advocates believe that the rehabilitated San Juan Hotel has the potential to be a site of truth-telling and reconciliation, and to foster a sense of community pride and identity.

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Terminal Island Japanese American Tuna Street Buildings, Los Angeles, California

The Nanka Shoten (1918) and A. Nakamura Co. (1923) buildings are the last remaining structures from the Japanese American fishing village on Terminal Island in Los Angeles, a community that once numbered around 3,000 residents. The buildings originally housed a dry goods store and a grocery. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, members of the Japanese American community on Terminal Island were forcibly removed, and most were ultimately incarcerated at Manzanar War Relocation Site. During the war, the U.S. government took over the land and razed most of the residential and commercial buildings, so community members could not return home after the war, and many resettled around Los Angeles.

Today, Terminal Island is one of the country’s busiest container ports, and the Port of Los Angeles is considering demolition of the Japanese American buildings in order to use the land for container storage. The two small buildings are deteriorating, having been vacant and boarded up for years.

After the entirety of Terminal Island was included on the National Trust’s list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2012, the Terminal Islanders Association and the Los Angeles Conservancy worked with the Port to include preservation and reuse recommendations in their master plan. However, the Port is still considering demolition of the Nanka Shoten and A. Nakamura Co. buildings, despite a pending action to designate them as Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments.

Advocates for saving the buildings on Tuna Street need attention and support to ensure protection and reuse of the Nanka Shoten and A. Nakamura Buildings in a way that honors their ancestors and commemorates this dark chapter of American history.

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The Turtle, Niagara Falls, New York

The Turtle, also known as the Native American Center for the Living Arts, is a powerful symbol of Indigenous heritage. Completed in 1981 and designed by Arapaho architect Dennis Sun Rhodes, its distinctive turtle-shaped structure draws inspiration from the Haudenosaunee creation story of Sky Woman landing on the back of a turtle (also known as Turtle Island). Founded 15 years after the closure of the last federally funded Indian Boarding School, it symbolizes the cultural reclamation and celebration of Native American languages, identity, and arts. Located adjacent to Niagara Falls, the Turtle became a hub for fostering education, cultural preservation, and healing.

The Turtle was once the largest center for Indigenous arts in the Eastern United States but closed in 1996 due to financial challenges. After purchase by a developer nearly 30 years ago, the Turtle has been vacant, and the owner previously shared plans to demolish the building and replace it with a high-rise hotel. The bold colored stripes that once emphasized the Turtle’s zoomorphic form have been painted white, making the building’s original design harder to visualize, and The Turtle is not a protected local landmark.

The Friends of The Niagara Turtle coalition, made up of over 1,000 Indigenous and Non-Indigenous people, has engaged extensively with the Haudenosaunee Nations and other Indigenous communities, garnering support for revitalizing The Turtle as a cultural resource. The coalition envisions reactivating the building as a cultural center, to include exhibitions, dance and music performances, and educational experiences highlighting Native American heritage, culture, and languages. However, partnerships and funding are needed to make this vision a reality and “reawaken” the Turtle once again.

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The Wellington, Pine Hill, New York

Built in 1882, The Wellington Hotel (first known as The Ulster House Hotel) is one of few surviving examples of the large-scale wood-frame resorts built in the Catskills region of New York in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Hotels like the Wellington were significant to the development of tourism as a major resort industry in the Catskills. At one time, the Wellington was one of fourteen hotels in the hamlet of Pine Hill.

Today, Pine Hill still relies on tourism as its economic driver, but the Wellington’s condition has undermined its ability to serve visitors or the community. It has been deteriorating for years, and the foundation is in danger of collapse. Temporary stabilization measures are not projected to last more than a few years. Saving the Wellington will require foundation replacement, flood mitigation measures, and a fire suppression system, as well as major rehabilitation of the interior and exterior. Full restoration costs are estimated at around $7 million—an amount hard to reach for a small community of 339 people.

In 2022, the Wellington went up for sale. Twenty community members concerned about the building’s future banded together to raise funds to purchase the hotel, clean up the property, and begin investigating feasible reuses. A community-based multimember LLC now called Wellington Blueberry is pursuing plans to rehabilitate the Wellington using Federal and State Historic Tax Credits. Based upon community needs, the Wellington will house a grocery store and café, with 10 workforce apartments. The project is supported by the Town of Shandaken, Ulster County, Restore NY, and nonprofit housing developer RUPCO, Inc. However, the coalition requires significant additional funding towards the $7 million needed to not only save an important historic property but also activate the Wellington Hotel to serve its community while providing a model for other projects in rural areas.

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