Wallingford Historic Preservation Trust - Linking the Projects Together

Linking the Projects Together

Of particular interest for families who come to visit, all of our projects and sites will be linked together and to put in a framework that shows their historical and sociological relationship to one another. We will do this by:

Locating a Visitors' Center in downtown Wallingford.

This will provide a central location where those coming to visit will park, purchase tickets, and have the option of watching a video or using other interactive displays that will introduce the sites they will visit.

Operating the PASTMOBILE, a shuttle bus that will bring visitors from one site to the other.

Moving chronologically through time, visitors will first visit the 1670's Royce House, then the 1780's Blakeslee House, the circa 1810 Muddy River Schoolhouse, and finish at the 1866 Johnson Mansion. The Pastmobile itself will have audio and video systems that begin to introduce each site to visitors prior to arrival at the site. The Pastmobile concept has a number of positive features. By encouraging visitors to park in one central location and using a transportation system to access the various sites, it minimizes the traffic impact on the rest of the community and the parking impact in the particular neighborhoods where these sites are located. Secondly, it means that, once they have completed the Pastmobile route, visitors will be returned to the downtown area where they will have the opportunity and the encouragement to patronize local antique stores, restaurants, and other businesses.

Integrating our Projects into the Community

To foster this integration between the Trust properties and the historic downtown area, the Trust will also promote the downtown as an area for preservation-related businesses to locate. Such businesses will include stores that supply building supplies for historic restoration, furniture restorers, used and antique book dealers, stained glass restoration studios, and antique lighting restorers, to name but a few that will be recruited to the downtown area. The obvious overlap between what happens downtown and what happens at the Trust properties will create a synergy beneficial to both groups, and promote Wallingford as the preservation, heritage education, and heritage tourism capital of Connecticut.

Unique Aspects of Our Projects

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