Oakland Time Machine: Celebrating Preservation in 1975
Each May, we celebrate National Preservation Month and commemorate our nation’s heritage through historic places. In May 1976, Oakland Cemetery was recognized as a historic place worthy of preservation when it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 and maintained by the National Park Service, the National Register of Historic Places supports public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources. Submitted in 1975, the nomination form highlighted Oakland’s significance:
Oakland Cemetery exists as important historical and cultural statement for the city of Atlanta. As the City’s oldest extant burial ground, its monuments and markers are a record of its citizens, great and small, who have been laid to rest there since 1850. The grounds of the cemetery are an expression of the 19th century landscape ideal of a cemetery-park and provide a luxuriant setting for the profusion of fine Victorian cemetery art.
Travel back in time to see Oakland in 1975. You can find Oakland’s complete National Register of Historic Places nomination form here.
