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Category: History

City to Build a Walking Tour Promoting Lakeland’s History

The Council will consider accepting a grant of $15,000 from the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority (MHAA) FY2022 Grant Agreement for the Lakeland Community Heritage Augmented Reality Tour.
The City will provide a cash match of $15,000 and a significant amount of in-kind services will be provided through volunteers and donated services from professionals such as genealogists and historians working with LCHP.
The project is expected to enhance the existing neighborhood walking tour by adding an augmented reality element with historical narrative, photographs, and oral histories of former Lakelanders. The first stage of the work entails developing new content for the tour and collecting, assessing, interpreting, and curating data such as property records, photographs, maps, and oral histories.
This is being accomplished through paid interns and volunteer community members. The second phase of the work will involve hiring technical consultants to transfer information to Metaverse software to create a free, accessible mobile app.
Physical markers with QR codes will be placed at heritage sites throughout the community, and visitors and residents will be able to scan the codes to experience the augmented reality tour through their mobile phones.

Lakeland Community to Kick-Off Heritage Weekend Today

From today, Lakeland community will kick off the weekend-long events to celebrate the historic Lakeland Heritage Weekends. Events will start today and will continue until this Sunday. Events will take place at the College Park Community Center, 5051 Pierce Avenue.

Here is the list of events:

Friday, September 9 –Lakeland Classic Basketball 7 PM – CP Dream Team vs Lakeland All Stars

Saturday, September 10
– Lakeland Walk for Health with Embry Center for Family Life 8 AM Register HERE – Lakeland Heritage Bake Off entries due at Noon prizes awarded at 2 PM – Enter HERE
– Picnic Grounds open at College Park Community Center noon to 3 PM
-Heritage Music Fest: A Celebration of Spiritual and Gospel Music 3 PM to 5 PM.

Sunday, September 11
-Please attend services at the congregation of your choosing.
-Tour of Rosenwald School in partnership with College Park Arts Exchange – 2 PM at Washington Brazilian SDA Church, 8108 54 th Avenue, College Park

Council Pledges Its Support for Local Heritage Group

Battle of Bladensburg Bicentennial

A representative from the Anacostia Trails Heritage Area (ATHA) came to the Council work session last Tuesday to speak about the group’s activities in promoting history and arts of local municipalities.

The City of College Park pays $8,000 yearly to be part of the Anacostia Trails Heritage Area (ATHA).

ATHA provides resources and programs to mark the history of the areas surrounding the Anacostia watershed, including historical trails and markers and celebrations and events commemorating the history, culture and natural resources of the area.

Recently, ATHA launched the Maryland Milestones program to celebrate important historical events that happened in our area.

More information about ATHA, including upcoming events and resources in the area, is available at www.anacostiatrails.org.

Book a Treasure of College Park’s History

College Park has a century old rich history that we can all be proud of, yet when it comes to searching those precious gems, there aren’t too many resources we can find. The City does not have a place where it has archived various books and pictures that have been lying around here and there. The council member Stephanie Stullich did an excellent job in collecting some of those pictures in a book a few years back, however there are more than a few pictures that we need to preserve.

One of these precious gems include a fairly old book by T. Raymond Burch. Titled “History and Development of the City of College Park, Berwyn Heights, Greenbelt and Adjacent Areas”, the book was first published in 1965 and is now out of print. Only a few may have a copy of this precious treasure.

Recently, College Park resident Jane Kushner Hopkins found a copy of this book in the rare collections of her dad Alvin Kushner, who served as the Mayor of College Park for two terms from 1985 to 1989. The Gazette had an artcle on Mr. Kushner’s Mayoral race in this week’s edition.

Jane took the pain of scanning the book in PDF format, which I’ve uploaded here. Jane said she has a few more such treasures which she has found in her dad’s collection. “..too bad the city doesn’t have an office or files or something set aside for history.“- wrote Jane in an email to me.

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