The History Center in Tompkins County uses historic maps and related resources to encourage the exploration of our county as a place that holds multiple narratives in city blocks, village main streets, and rural landscapes. We are focusing on an exciting new initiative - History Forge, which creates a dynamic web presence for integrating historical maps with information about buildings, people and businesses. We are in the process of incorporating data from censuses and city directories. History Forge, with multiple sources of information, creates a powerful matrix for creating historical narratives of our community. It will also make untapped information accessible.

We are designing a "proof of concept" model to test the feasibility of all aspects of the project from web development and database design to hosting census data entry "bees." A grant proposal will be submitted to the National Endowment for the Humanities with the goal of funding in 2017 to get to a finished product.

But we need funding right now to continue our thoughtful, steady and exciting pace of development.

Dryden Mutual Insurance Company and its president, Bob Baxter, have provided enough seed money to get us started and we are deeply grateful to them. Additional sponsors will be greatly appreciated. You can get a sneak preview of the project website by clicking here.

History Forge is linked to a future exhibition being developed by Tompkins/Cortland Community College (TC3) students and faculty. The Altered Landscapes/Preserved Landscapes exhibition will engage county residents, utilizing digital technology, with the changing and/or preserved land, architecture, and transportation systems of the area. The exhibit will be an invitation to residents to get out and explore the county and to tell us what landscapes they are most connected with and/or most concerned about.

History Forge and Altered Landscapes/Preserved Landscapes will complement one another and support explorations of this unique place.