Preservation Texas Awarded Major National Park Service Grant
SEPTEMBER 24, 2025
SAN MARCOS, TEXAS — Preservation Texas announced today that it has been awarded its second $750,000 Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization Grant from the National Park Service to support economic development through the preservation of historic log buildings in rural Texas. The grant will allow Preservation Texas to offer subgrants to between five and seven log building preservation projects in rural communities with a population of 10,000 or fewer residents, which will range from $75,000 to $150,000 per project. Details about how to apply for funding and specific eligibility requirements will be released soon.
"We are proud to be entrusted with this critical funding to support endangered log buildings in Texas," said Evan Thompson, executive director of Preservation Texas. "The first buildings in Texas's earliest settlements were generally built of log. They were once common, and have become increasingly rare."
This is the second grant that Preservation Texas has received from the National Park Service for rural preservation. Ten subgrant projects to stabilize and repair endangered rural African-American buildings are wrapping up over the next two months, with grants awarded from $35,000 to $75,000. The program has been managed by Conor Herterich, Preservation Texas's Northeast Texas Program Officer in Tyler, who will also manage this new log building program. "Log buildings are a focal point for understanding and interpreting early Texas history," said Herterich. "We not only want to save the most endangered log buildings in Texas, but we want to sustain the craft traditions that makes it possible to maintain these buildings."
Last year, Preservation Texas hosted a historic log building preservation symposium in Nacogdoches. The organization will be working to develop preservation guidelines for preserving Texas log buildings, in addition to researching the history of log buildings to support the listing of individual structures on the National Register of Historic Places.
"As our state's bicentennial approaches in 2036, some of our earliest log buildings are nearly 200 years old," Thompson added. "We can't afford to lose any more of them."
In 2016 Preservation Texas included historic log buildings on its annual Most Endangered Places list, spotlighting the Cavitt Log House (pictured) in Wheelock (Robertson County).
