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Is one of 2025's 'Places in Peril' near you? See inside 10 historic Georgia properties
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GPB's Orland Montoya speaks with Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation president and CEO Wright Mitchell.
Each year, the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation lists historic residences, business and churches threatened by demolition, neglect, development or public policy.
The nonprofit's annual Places in Peril this year included a circa-1900 peach packing barn in Middle Georgia's Peach County, a historic Black church in Savannah and the Southeastern Railway Museum in Duluth, northeast of Atlanta.
Trust president and CEO Wright Mitchell said the railway museum is significant not for its building but for its historic train cars.
"Franklin Delano Rosevelt's Marco Polo sleeper train is there that he would take down to Warm Springs," Mitchell said. "And in fact, there are 90 pieces of rolling stock there at the museum."
The small museum is struggling to care for the collection.
Many of the Trust's annual selections go on to be restored while others languish and a few have been demolished and lost forever.
Mitchell stressed the importance of historic preservation as an economic development tool, with state tax credits having a 7-to-1 return on investment.
"What we hope we can achieve through our Places in Peril program is a preservation outcome that results in the historic resource being rehabilitated and revitalized and put back into use," Mitchell said.
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