Landmarkhunter.com was founded and run by James Baughn until he passed away in December 2020. The website is now maintained by the Historic Bridge Foundation. Please scroll down to "What's the purpose of this site?" to see an introduction to the website written by James Baughn.
Landmarkhunter.com does not maintain an email account. If you have a question about a bridge or the website, please visit the forum on the website and post your question. A user account is not required. The many contributors and users on Landmarkhunter.com will address your question. If you wish to request a user account so you can contribute photos and information to Landmarkhunter.com, please fill out the New User Registration Form, and post a comment in the forum introducing yourself to the friendly Landmarkhunter.com community, and requesting activation of your account, using the email address you chose when filling out the registration. An administrator will respond to your request and activate your account.
Other general concerns about Landmarkhunter.com may be addressed to the Historic Bridge Foundation directly, however please note that the Historic Bridge Foundation is unable to respond to questions about individual structures on Landmarkhunter.com. Please make use of the forums for any discussions or questions relating to individual bridges.
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I've left the definition of "landmark" somewhat vague. Basically, a landmark is a place that is "interesting" in some way, distinguished by its history, uniqueness, conspicuousness, notoriety, or beauty. The bar is not particularly high -- certainly not as high as the National Register of Historic Places. However, I don't want this site to turn into Waymarking.com with many trivial categories like "Starbucks Locations" and "Coin Operated Self Service Car Washes."
To kick off the site, I imported almost all listings from the National Register of Historic Places as well as some of the more notable items from the GNIS placenames database maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey. The listings fall into these general departments adapted from NRHP and GNIS terminology:
On each county listing page, you have the option of hiding and showing the different departments to make it easier to browse the landmarks.
The departments above are further divided into categories. Each landmark fits into exactly one category, such as Lighthouse or Hotel. The National Register doesn't have very specific categories, so I had to cheat a little when importing the data, resorting to generic catch-all categories like Building or Miscellaneous. Go to the main Categories page to browse the differnt choices.
To provide more flexibility than categories, each landmark can be "tagged" with many different keywords and topics. The Browse menu shows the range of tags, including:
The site is generally laid out by state, then by county, and finally by individual landmarks. Counties make for a reasonably good method of grouping landmarks together. (Landmarks are also tagged by city, but that leaves out many rural landmarks, plus the boundaries of cities are constantly changing.)
Unfortunately, the rules for what is considered a "county" can vary by state, with lots of oddities. Here is a quick rundown of the exceptions:
Disclaimer: While county boundaries are usually permanent, some changes have happened in recent decades (especially in Virginia with its frustrating system of independent cities). Since the documention from the National Register is rarely updated beyond the initial nomination, some listings on this site may be shown in the wrong county.