The Conservation Fund to save Historic Edistone Hotel – The Selma Times‑Journal

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The Conservation Fund announced on Wednesday that they plan to protect the historic Edistone Hotel. The Conservation Fund, according to its website, works with local communities and partners to identify African American sites across the country that are at risk of development or being forgotten or demolished. They specialize in restoring places like important civil rights sites across the South, homes and farms that made up the Underground Railroad and locations where priceless American culture — art, music — literature — was created. | Brent Maze, The Selma Times-Journal

The Conservation Fund announced on Wednesday that they plan to protect the historic Edistone Hotel. The Conservation Fund, according to its website, works with local communities and partners to identify African American sites across the country that are at risk of development or being forgotten or demolished. They specialize in restoring places like important civil rights sites across the South, homes and farms that made up the Underground Railroad and locations where priceless American culture — art, music — literature — was created. | Brent Maze, The Selma Times-Journal

The Conservation Fund announced on Wednesday that they plan to protect the historic Edistone Hotel. The Conservation Fund, according to its website, works with local communities and partners to identify African American sites across the country that are at risk of development or being forgotten or demolished. They specialize in restoring places like important civil rights sites across the South, homes and farms that made up the Underground Railroad and locations where priceless American culture — art, music — literature — was created. | Brent Maze, The Selma Times-Journal

The Conservation Fund announced on Wednesday that they plan to protect the historic Edistone Hotel. The Conservation Fund, according to its website, works with local communities and partners to identify African American sites across the country that are at risk of development or being forgotten or demolished. They specialize in restoring places like important civil rights sites across the South, homes and farms that made up the Underground Railroad and locations where priceless American culture — art, music — literature — was created. | Brent Maze, The Selma Times-Journal

The Historic Edistone Hotel on Water Avenue has a new investor that plans to preserve and restore the 1855 hotel.

The Conservation Fund announced on Wednesday that they plan to protect the historic Edistone Hotel. The hotel, which sits on the banks of the Alabama River at the intersection of Green Street and Water Avenue, has fallen into disrepair. A building next to the hotel collapsed during a strong thunderstorm last year, putting the historic site at further risk of collapse.

“It’s unfathomable that the Edistone Hotel, a place so rich in American history, came so close to being lost forever,” said Phillip Howard, Manager of the Legacy Places Initiative for The Conservation Fund. “As the site of the Freedman’s Bureau after the Civil War, you can imagine that the Edistone Hotel was one of the first places a formerly enslaved person in the South would have been treated like a human. By saving the Edistone Hotel, we’re not just protecting the physical location. We’re protecting the stories and legacies of all those that passed through its doors, or stood at this site, and are ensuring those stories live on as part of our shared American history.”

Rex Jones of Cougar Oil credited Selma Redevelopment Authority executive director Sarah Aghedo with connecting the city with The Conservation Fund to help preserve a key piece of the historic waterfront district.

“I’ve been watching this building for years, and it appears like it’s so far gone. I didn’t think it was possible for them to salvage it, but anything is possible with the right investors,” Jones said of the building that’s across the street from his business. “Sarah to her credit stayed with this hotel. This was her project that she kind of took on, and as far as I know, she found the right people with The Conservation Group.”

The Conservation Fund, according to its website, works with local communities and partners to identify African American sites across the country that are at risk of development or being forgotten or demolished. They specialize in restoring places like important civil rights sites across the South, homes and farms that made up the Underground Railroad and locations where priceless American culture — art, music — literature — was created. They have expertise in land acquisition and conservation to quickly acquire at-risk properties and protect them, working with local community partners who steward them long-term.

The Edistone Hotel fits their criteria. Before the Civil War, the site served as the location for Dallas County’s largest market for enslaved people. During Reconstruction, it housed the Freedman’s Bureau, which was established by Congress after the Civil War, to provide food, clothing and shelter for newly freed African Americans.

In the 1870s, the hotel proprietor offered equal accommodation to patrons, regardless of race. The Edistone hotel is steps from the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where in 1965 more than 500 civil rights marchers were beaten on their way to Montgomery, now memorialized as Bloody Sunday. The hotel was set to be demolished until The Conservation Fund stepped in, saving it from the wrecking ball. The organization is now working to secure its long-term protection and future plans for this historic site.

“The journey to preserve the Edistone Hotel has been a rollercoaster of delight and despair,” said Sarah Aghedo, Executive Director of the Selma Redevelopment Authority. “Since 2022, when the National Trust for Historic Preservation provided funding for the hotel’s structural documentation, we have wondered if this Alabama “Place in Peril” would be restored to tell its multi-layered history. We are grateful The Conservation Fund was able to purchase the hotel, supporting the many private efforts to secure its future.”

The Conservation Fund worked with MASS Design Group, a Boston-based architecture firm that specializes in projects that promote justice and human dignity, to develop renderings of the site. Based on feedback from community listening sessions, the renderings reimagine the Edistone as a museum, co-working space and grocery store as part of Selma, Alabama’s downtown revitalization.

“The Edistone Hotel is part of the people’s public memory in downtown Selma and has the potential to be a collaborative case for how memorializing the past can be a catalyst for our shared futures, delivering resources and amenities for city residents and visitors, while honoring and acknowledging the location’s profound history,” said Jha D Amazi, principal at MASS Design Group. “We are honored to work with The Conservation Fund to help make this historical location a place to honor memory while revitalizing and activating the site in ways that build new collective capacities for the community.”

The Edistone Hotel is the latest African American heritage site protected by The Conservation Fund. Other projects include Zora Neale Hurston’s final home, the Chattahoochee Brick Company Memorial Park in Georgia, The Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument, the protection of formerly segregated beaches in Maryland, and the Freedom Riders National Monument in Alabama.

To learn more, log on to www.conservationfund.org.