Schedule

Jan. 19, 2012 - 6:30 p.m.: Open forum for community tour.

Jan. 26, 2012 - 6:30 p.m.: Open forum for community tour.

March 14, 2012 - 5 p.m.: Research information (200-500 words) for community tour feature "If This House Could Talk," due.

April 12, 2012 - 10 a.m.: Richard Gachot, McFaddin-Ward Museum guest speaker, talk about development of neighborhoods in society.

April 13, 2012 - 4:30 - 6:30 p.m.: Community tour at Chambers or McFaddin-Ward House Museums.

April 14, 2012 -  9 a.m. - noon.: Preservation Celebration at the McFaddin-Ward House Museum.

Community Tour (Tentative) Plans

Friday, April 13, 4:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.

• Visitors will have a chance to start at either the Chambers House Museum or the Visitors Center on April 13, from 4:30-6:30 p.m. The event will begin a first-floor tour and a brief introduction about the walk.
• Visitors will be given a brochure specifically designed for the tour that will outline the area, give a brief synopsis about the houses, and will provide QR codes people can scan with their smartphones, to make reading the signs a little easier for those who might find it difficult to walk or see.
• The tour will be divided into 4 quadrants, with the center point at Calder and Seventh. It will go from 1^st street to 11^th, then from Ashley Street to South Street.
• Each participating home will have a yard sign staked close to the road, so people can see it from their cars, bicycles or from the sidewalk. These signs will be composed of interesting tidbits of information gathered from participating residents' research, and will be edited by the McFaddin-Ward House staff (we will incur all costs in the making of these signs). All signs will be uniform.
• Signs will stay up until Sunday, April 15, so that people can enjoy the information for an extended amount of time.

Participation:

• Interested researchers and homeowners will research the background and history of the homes or historically-significant sites and write a short piece (anywhere from 200-500 words) about it. We will offer our archives to the public, free of charge.
• The research deadline is Wednesday, March 14, 2012.
• They are welcome to mail, email or fax their stories to the McFaddin-Ward House Visitors Center.
• A direct mail flyer will be sent out to advertise two open forums that will take place Thursday, Jan. 12 and 26 at 6 p.m. at the Visitors Center, to answer any questions or concerns that any interested parties might have.

Preservation Celebration:

Saturday, April 14, from 9 a.m. to noon

• Richard Gachot at the McFaddin-Ward House Visitors Center on Friday, April 13^th at 10 a.m. Mr. Gachot's free, hour-long talk will center on the value of neighborhoods, their structures, and the history of how they developed within our society.
• Most of the activities will take place on the Carriage House lawn on Saturday, April 14, from 9 a.m. to noon.
• We will encourage last year's participating businesses and merchants (such as Katherine's , Rao's, Tattered Suitcase, and Urban Habitat) to make Calder Street alive for those days. "Buying local and keeping green" was our motto last year, and we will continue to promote that philosophy to strengthen our local economy as well as our environment.

Mission: Our hope is to take advantage of our visitors' natural curiosity to ignite the passion of historical preservation in Beaumont - as well as the surrounding areas - so that we can save the wonderful buildings and sites that have contributed so much to our history over the years.