March 11

Camden Amphitheatre, library named national landmark

The Associated Press

CAMDEN, Maine — Maine's Camden Amphitheatre and Public Library has been designated as a national historic landmark along with a dozen other sites around the country, the U.S. Department of the Interior and National Parks Service announced on Monday.

click image to enlarge

This 1997 file photo shows the rotunda, a predominant feature of the 9,000-square-foot underground Centennial Wing of the Camden Public Library, the peak of which lets in natural light. Maine's Camden Amphitheatre and Public Library has been designated as a national historic landmark along with a dozen other sites around the country.

Staff File Photo

click image to enlarge

Camden Public Library

2004 Staff File Photo

The library built in 1928 is surrounded by grounds that include a public outdoor garden amphitheater, which was a gift to the library in 1931.

It's one of the few public projects of Fletcher Steele, one of the country's premiere practitioners of 20th century landscape design, the National Parks Service.

"It is an outstanding representation of the contributions made by the landscape architecture profession, private benefactors, and national associations to develop public landscapes in the United States that celebrated natural regional beauty, scenic character, and rich cultural history," the Parks Service said.

The Camden Amphitheatre continues to be used as a public entertainment space, park and garden for visitors.

The other new historic landmarks include an Alabama bridge that was the site of "Bloody Sunday" during the civil rights movement, the home of author and abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe in Hartford, Conn., and the Epic of American Civilization Murals by José Clemente Orozco at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H.

National historic landmarks are nationally significant historic places that possess exceptional value or quality in illustrating or interpreting the heritage of the United States, according to the park service.

 

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