The church is the sole remaining building in the Black coal camp community established at Tams and is also a physical reminder of the once-bustling coal town’s racially segregated past. The congregation consisted of Black miners and their families who resided in the northern section of Tams, while white and recent European immigrant groups lived in separate areas.

The Gothic Revival style church was built in 1921 after the board of trustees of the congregation approached W. P. Tams, Jr., who owned the company town, requesting that a church be built for them. Tams obliged and provided the funding for the construction of the church. The congregation was able to repay Tams in 1928 and received a clear title to the property.  Unfortunately, a reversion clause in the deed reportedly states that the parcel will revert to ownership by the present Western Pocahontas Land Company should it cease to be used as a house of worship. 

The church building currently serves a small congregation dedicated to the continued preservation of its built history with admittedly limited resources. Calls for its preservation have been publicly discussed through local news media for several decades, and in 2016 the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia listed the church as a West Virginia Endangered Property.

In 2021, the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia received a grant from the West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office to conduct a National Register nomination. PAWV is delighted to report that as of 2023, the New Salem Baptist Church is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

We're proud of the work the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia accomplished in 2022! Take a look at the report below or download the .PDF document.

PAWV received 32 applications requesting over $2.8 million during the Saving Historic Places Grant application period of December 8, 2021 to March 18, 2022. Seven projects were selected totaling $488,008.53 in grant awards (detailed below). Most of these projects have already published requests for quotations (RFQs) from qualified contractors.

1. Arthurdale School Buildings, Arthurdale (Preston County)
Amount Received: $65,175.28
Arthurdale Heritage, Inc. received funding to stabilize the exteriors of the 3 historic school buildings on the Arthurdale campus. This includes roof repair, drainage systems, gutter installation, mothballing windows and doors, sidewalk repair and brush removal. Project funding will secure, stabilize and mothball the buildings to prepare for their adaptive re-use. Pictured below are two of the school buildings. 

2. Cold Metal Building, Wellsburg (Brooke County)
Amount Received: $84,790.10
The Business Development Corporation of the Northern Panhandle (BDC), a nonprofit organization, received funding for the stabilization of the Cold Metal Building. Funding will be used to repoint brick, infill holes, and rebuild certain areas of the building. The BDC is working with the local community on a master plan for the structure that involves reusing it for a commercial space.

3. New River Grocery Building, Hinton (Summers County)
Amount Received: $108,810
The City of Hinton received funding to install a complete EPDM roofing system, including the insulation board, gutters, downspouts, and accessories. The proposed use of the New River Grocery Building will be to immediately incorporate it as an extension of the Freight Depot event center, a space used by nonprofit organizations, as well as to relocate the Railroad History Museum to this space.

4. Logan House, Beverly (Randolph County)
Amount Received: $30,000
Rich Mountain Battlefield Foundation received funding to repair a hole in the roof of the Logan House, replace timbers in the roof and upper floor that have been compromised by a fire, and replace rotting boards. This is a first step in saving the currently vacant building.

I have been able to attend several hands-on preservation workshops during my time with AmeriCorps and I am so excited to be able to help continue to bring that knowledge to future AmeriCorps members. One particularly special moment for me was to meet and work with Bob Yapp of “About Your House” fame, who came to Weston to work with PAWV and the Weston HLC on the masonry restoration of a small two room brick office building in the historic downtown.

Preserving West Virginia’s historic resources is a passion of mine and I am forever grateful to be given the opportunity to work the Preservation Alliance - a nonprofit that specializes in just that. ​

Last week, the West Virginia Legislature passed legislation that improves the 25% State Historic Tax Credit (HTC) in West Virginia, and it is now on its way to the Governor's desk. 
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House Bill 4568 (known as Phased Rehabilitations of Certified Historic Structures) achieves multiple goals such as:

• Allowing the state HTC to be taken in phases, which is known as “phased rehabilitations”,
• Allowing the recapture of HTCs,
• Requiring the issuance of HTC certificates based on issuance of Phase Advisory Determination, bringing the state program in line with the federal HTC program, and
• Eliminating all caps to the state historic tax credit and associated rules, guarantees, and restrictions related to caps and allocations. These were outlined in the original 2017 legislation that increased the tax credit from 10% to 25% and included:
  • The per project cap of $10 million for a certified rehabilitation project;
  • The annual cumulative cap of $30 million in tax credits issued per fiscal year;
  • The “smaller project” allocation that was originally intended to ensure smaller projects (those under $500,000) received tax credits

If signed into law by Governor Justice, this legislation will become effective on July 1, 2022. What this means for West Virginia is that completing HTC projects just got a little simpler. The three-part application for the state and federal HTCs (which when combined total 45%) will be a more fluid process when working with the West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office and the National Park Service because the agencies will now follow the same procedural rules, thus minimizing paperwork requirements. Equally as important, removing the limitations on allocations and guarantees of historic tax credits will make it more secure and improve investor confidence when undertaking both larger and smaller projects.

This is a major win for West Virginia! These provisions increase the Mountain State’s attractiveness from industry-based development firms that specialize in HTC-backed projects, in addition to making the program more user-friendly for individuals wanting to undertake smaller projects. Neighboring states have more restrictive programs, making West Virginia a very investor-friendly state for HTC projects in the mid-Atlantic region. For instance, Maryland has a 20% state HTC that is capped at $3 million per project with a $9 million annual cumulative cap per fiscal year. Pennsylvania and Ohio both have a 25% state HTC, but they have $5 million annual cumulative cap per fiscal year.

HB 4568 was sponsored by Delegates Jason Barrett (R-61), Eric Householder (R-64), Erikka Storch (R-03), Vernon Criss (R-10), Paul Espinosa (R-66), Daniel Linville (R-16), Joe Ellington (R-27), Ruth Rowan (R-57), Clay Riley (R-48), Dianna Graves (R-38), and John Hardy (R-63). The Alliance appreciates their support and would also like to thank the leadership and policy expertise provided by the Abandoned Properties Coalition and their long-term dedication to seeing West Virginia’s state historic tax credit improved.
 
The Preservation Alliance of West Virginia is the statewide, grassroots nonprofit dedicated to historic preservation. The Alliance has been working as a member of the Abandoned Properties Coalition since 2016 to improve the state HTC to include the provisions outlined in HB 4568.

For inquiries regarding usage of the West Virginia commercial HTC, contact the West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office’s Tax Credit Coordinator, Meredith Dreistadt at [email protected]. 

Read the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia's 2021 Annual Report. Check out the .pdf or scroll down to see the report in images.

West Virginians are invited to celebrate their historic preservation success stories through the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia’s new West Virginia Preservation Spotlight series. ​

Since 1982, the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia has been working to enhance West Virginia’s Preservation Community in support of our historic structures and landscapes. One of the most effective programs we have deployed to date has been our Preserve WV AmeriCorps program. Since 2013 our AmeriCorps program has deployed 193 AmeriCorps service members across 176 sites in WV. The members have provided services to their sponsoring sites with the goals of increasing capacity, tourism, and sustainability for our historic assets across the state. 

The benefits of the Preserve WV AmeriCorps program to organizations can hardly be overstated. Beyond the direct service provided by national service members, there have been huge collateral benefits to West Virginia's communities. Service members have gained experience and understanding of the importance and intricacies of preservation activities to help them in their careers, sponsoring organizations have expanded their outreach and capacity to fulfill their missions, and members and alumni throughout the state have been invigorating their communities with fresh ideas and enthusiasm for West Virginia's historic assets. Many Preserve WV AmeriCorps members are from out of state, and some have gone on to remain here and become long-term residents of West Virginia.

Recently, the Preservation Alliance completed a Phase One evaluation of its AmeriCorps program with the Indiana University's Eppley Institute for Research. This report found that the 110 Preserve WV AmeriCorps members, who served in the Preserve WV AmeriCorps program during the period 2015-2019, positively impacted West Virginia's communities. Their service directly increased:

• Care of their site sponsor's historic resources by 77%
• Their site's organizational efficiency by 71%,
• Number of events at their sites by 72%,
• Visitation at their sites  by 61%, 
• Programming and resource sustainability by 61%,
• Volunteer participation at their sites by 31%, and
• Grant funding by 68%, with the median increase being $1,100 per site.

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A summary of that research is provided in the images below. You can also review a full copy of the report here.