This national watchlist names 11 U.S. historic places now at real risk from demolition, storm damage, or slow neglect.
The annual watchlist released each May by the National Trust for Historic Preservation spotlights places across the United States that are in danger right now, from coastal towns hit by record storm surge to landmark hotels left vacant for decades. The list began in 1988 and has featured more than 350 sites. Only a handful have been lost, which shows how public attention can keep buildings, stories, and landmarks alive.
This guide walks through the 2025 lineup. You’ll see why each place matters to local history, what is putting it at risk, and what residents and preservation groups are doing to save it. The range is wide: a Gulf Coast island town wrecked by hurricane surge, a six-story lodge inside a national monument that needs seismic work, and the last surviving Japanese American storefronts from a World War II–era fishing village in Los Angeles.
Most Threatened Historic Sites Across The United States Today
The National Trust raises the alarm to rally money, policy attention, and hands-on repair work before the loss becomes permanent. The 2025 list shows three repeating dangers: violent storms and flooding; long-term neglect that turns into structural failure; and demolition pressure from redevelopment plans in fast-growing places.
To help you scan the whole list fast, the table below shows all eleven places, where they sit, and the main risk that put them on the 2025 watchlist.
Snapshot Table: Sites And Main Risk
| Place | Location | Main Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Cedar Key | Florida Gulf Coast | Storm surge, flooding, and sea level rise after Hurricane Helene in 2024 |
| French Broad & Swannanoa River Corridors | Western North Carolina | Record river flooding from Tropical Storm Helene; damaged historic districts |
| Hotel Casa Blanca | Idlewild, Michigan | Long-term vacancy and severe deterioration of a landmark Black resort hotel |
| May Hicks Curtis House | Flagstaff, Arizona | Redevelopment that could bulldoze the house unless it’s moved and rehabbed |
| Mystery Castle | Phoenix, Arizona | Structural damage, vandalism, and stalled upkeep after a denied demolition bid |
| Oregon Caves Chateau | Cave Junction, Oregon | Closed lodge with steep rehab costs and seismic concerns inside a national monument |
| Pamunkey Indian Reservation | King William, Virginia | Sea level rise and sinking ground threatening homes and Tribal buildings |
| San Juan Hotel | San Juan, Texas | Years of neglect plus a downtown plan that could clear the site |
| Terminal Island Tuna Street Buildings | Los Angeles, California | Port of Los Angeles considering demolition of the last Japanese American storefronts |
| The Turtle | Niagara Falls, New York | Decades of vacancy and talk of replacing the Indigenous arts center with a high-rise hotel |
| The Wellington | Pine Hill, New York | Sinking foundation and a $7 million rehab bill that a tiny Catskills hamlet can’t raise alone |
Next, we’ll walk through each listing. You’ll see the backstory, what’s threatening it, and how locals are fighting for repairs or legal protection. Midway through, you’ll also find direct links to trusted sources — including an NPS rehab notice for Oregon Caves Chateau that explains why the beloved lodge remains closed for seismic and structural work.
Site Profiles And Why Each Place Is At Risk
Cedar Key, Florida
Cedar Key sits on a cluster of low islands in Florida’s Big Bend, with a year-round population of roughly 700 residents and a long maritime past. Locals describe it as “Old Florida”: clam boats at the docks, small inns, wood houses on pilings, and a walkable historic core instead of glass towers.
Hurricane Helene slammed Cedar Key in September 2024, blasting the waterfront with record storm surge. The surge ripped entire wood houses into the Gulf, crushed seafood shacks, and damaged landmarks like the post office and old city hall. Rising water and repeated high-intensity storms now threaten to wipe out streets, heritage buildings, and the clam industry that anchors local jobs.
Right before Helene hit, planners from Cedar Key, the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation, and the University of Florida finished a Resilient Cedar Key Adaptation Plan. It calls for raising historic houses, improving drainage near the town cemetery, and building “living shorelines” that blunt surge without giant seawalls. That playbook now guides recovery work in real time.
French Broad And Swannanoa River Corridors, Western North Carolina
The French Broad River and the Swannanoa River weave through western North Carolina, passing mill towns, artist districts, and tourist draws like Asheville’s River Arts District. Brick storefronts, mill buildings, and early neighborhoods stand right along both rivers.
Tropical Storm Helene in 2024 pushed the French Broad to 24.67 feet and the Swannanoa to 27.33 feet, breaking a 100-year flood record. Water tore through Biltmore Village and the River Arts District, soaking historic buildings that were never listed as flood zones, so many owners had no flood insurance at all.
Now, shop owners and residents are patching walls and hauling out debris on their own dime. Preservation leaders in Asheville and Buncombe County are asking for funding that can both shore up these buildings and plan long-term flood resilience so these river towns stay intact instead of being bulldozed and rebuilt as generic new construction.
Hotel Casa Blanca, Idlewild, Michigan
Idlewild in northern Michigan was nicknamed “Black Eden.” During segregation, it served as a major resort for Black travelers, performers, and entrepreneurs barred from white-only resorts. Hotel Casa Blanca, designed by Black architect Woolsey Coombs in 1949, anchored that scene and even appeared in The Negro Motorist Green Book. Legends like Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, and Aretha Franklin played Idlewild and stayed here.
After legal segregation ended, traffic slowed, tax dollars dried up, and the hotel sat empty for more than 30 years. The property now belongs to 1st Neighbor LLC, a Black woman-led nonprofit that has already removed hazards, drafted architectural plans, and mapped a path to reopen the building as lodging, gathering space, and a heritage learning center. The price tag: roughly $5 million still to raise.
May Hicks Curtis House, Flagstaff, Arizona
May Hicks Curtis is known as the “Betsy Ross” of Arizona because she sewed the first Arizona state flag in 1911. Her 1913 house sits just off the early Route 66 line in Flagstaff, next to two boarding houses that likely served early cross-country motorists. She spent decades active in local civic groups, kept historical records, and helped document pre-World War II life in Flagstaff through thousands of photos.
A developer plans new construction on the lot, which puts the house in the path of demolition. City officials stepped in, took ownership, and arranged to move the house to a temporary site so bulldozers don’t claim it. The goal is a permanent site, rehab work, and a public role for the house — anything from limited office use to a small interpretive space where locals and visitors can see Curtis’s story up close.
Mystery Castle, Phoenix, Arizona
Mystery Castle sits at the base of South Mountain in Phoenix. Boyce Luther Gulley built the place by hand from the 1930s through the mid-1940s for his daughter Mary Lou, using found stone, scrap metal, and other salvaged odds and ends. The 18-room compound mixes folk art, Pueblo Revival flourishes, and fantasy castle vibes, and LIFE magazine once profiled it as a quirky desert landmark.
Mary Lou kept tours going until 2010. Since her passing, the site has faced vandalism, break-ins, and steady Phoenix sprawl. The small local foundation created by Mary Lou applied for a demolition permit out of desperation, but the City of Phoenix denied it for one year. The city then hired a consultant to map out stabilization steps and basic visitor upgrades. A new Friends of Mystery Castle group is now looking for partners, funding, and a reuse plan that lets the public visit while keeping the handmade structure upright.
Oregon Caves Chateau, Cave Junction, Oregon
The six-story Oregon Caves Chateau opened in 1934 inside what is now Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve. It became a National Historic Landmark in 1987. The lodge blends native stone, rough-hewn wood, and a rustic National Park style sometimes called “Parkitecture.” A small creek actually runs through the dining room, and the building still holds the country’s largest public collection of vintage Monterey furniture.
The National Park Service closed the Chateau in 2018 for safety upgrades — wiring, plumbing, fire safety, and accessibility. Engineers then uncovered deeper trouble: a failing foundation, seismic risk, and other major structural problems, which sent costs soaring far beyond the original budget. The longer the building sits dark, the harder it is for Cave Junction and nearby rural towns, which once relied on lodge jobs and heritage tourism tied to Oregon Caves National Monument. The Park Service and Friends of the Oregon Caves and Chateau are now chasing money — including federal programs like the Great American Outdoors Act — and pushing a phased seismic and structural rehab plan so the lodge can safely reopen.
Pamunkey Indian Reservation, King William, Virginia
The Pamunkey people have lived on their land in eastern Virginia for at least 15,000 years and have never ceded the 1,600-acre peninsula that forms today’s Reservation. This is widely recognized as the oldest Reservation that still exists in the United States. Wahunsenecawh (often called Chief Powhatan) and Pocahontas both trace directly to this place and shaped early relations with English settlers in the 1600s.
Now the land faces fast water rise, stronger coastal storms, and sinking ground. Tribal homes, archeological sites, work sheds, fish camps, clay beds used for pottery, and traditional plants are all in danger. The Tribe has already launched shoreline plantings and other erosion control projects and created a Disaster Resilience Zone to map long-range survival plans. But major funding and long-range planning are still needed, because scientists project that most of the peninsula could be underwater within 75 years.
San Juan Hotel, San Juan, Texas
The San Juan Hotel rose in 1920, then got a Mission Revival style facelift in 1928. It stands in the Rio Grande Valley and sits at the center of a violent chapter in Texas border history known as “La Matanza,” or “The Slaughter,” when anti-Mexican terror and lynchings scarred the region between 1910 and 1920. Oral accounts say lynchings took place at or near the hotel itself, since it sat on the line dividing Anglo neighborhoods from Mexican American neighborhoods.
Now the building is empty, covered in graffiti, and deeply weathered. A new downtown plan in San Juan could clear the block for new construction, which puts the hotel under real demolition threat. Local historians and residents formed the Save the San Juan Hotel Initiative, backed by the Hidalgo County Historical Commission, to pressure city leaders to study adaptive reuse instead of wrecking the building and erasing this record of border violence.
Terminal Island Tuna Street Buildings, Los Angeles, California
Before World War II, Terminal Island in Los Angeles held a tight fishing enclave of Japanese American families — about 3,000 people at its peak — with houses, markets, and canneries. Two small commercial buildings on Tuna Street, Nanka Shoten (1918) and A. Nakamura Co. (1923), are all that’s left.
After Pearl Harbor, federal agents forced fishermen and their families off the island and sent many to incarceration sites such as Manzanar. The U.S. government then cleared most houses and storefronts, so families could not return after the war. Today, the Port of Los Angeles — one of the busiest cargo hubs in the country — has floated demolition of the last two storefronts so the land can be used for container storage. Local advocates, working with the L.A. Conservancy and the Terminal Islanders Association, are pushing for local landmark status and a reuse plan that honors Japanese American history instead of paving it over.
The Turtle, Niagara Falls, New York
The Turtle, also known as the Native American Center for the Living Arts, opened in 1981 beside Niagara Falls. Architect Dennis Sun Rhodes shaped the building like a turtle, drawing on the Haudenosaunee creation story of Sky Woman landing on a turtle’s back — a story often used to describe North America as Turtle Island. The center quickly became a national showcase for Native language revival, music, dance, and fine art following the shutdown of the last federally funded Indian boarding school.
The Turtle closed in 1996 after money trouble. A private owner later floated plans to demolish the turtle-shaped structure and build a high-rise hotel. Friends of The Niagara Turtle — a volunteer coalition of more than 1,000 Native and non-Native allies — wants to repaint the once-bold exterior stripes, repair the shell-like form, and reopen it as a living Indigenous arts and education hub. The plan calls for exhibitions, music and dance events, and hands-on workshops in Native languages and art traditions.
The Wellington, Pine Hill, New York
The Wellington Hotel dates to 1882 in Pine Hill, a Catskills rail stop that once drew summer travelers in search of mountain air and verandas. At one point Pine Hill had more than a dozen large wood-frame resorts; The Wellington is one of the last still standing.
Now the massive timber frame sags, the foundation is unstable, and basic fire safety systems are missing. Temporary shoring may only hold a few more years. Full rehab is pegged at about $7 million, a huge lift for a hamlet of roughly 339 residents. In 2022, twenty local residents pooled money to buy the hotel under a multimember LLC now called Wellington Blueberry. The plan is bold: rebuild the base, add flood protections and sprinklers, and reopen with a grocery store and café downstairs plus 10 workforce apartments upstairs. The group is pursuing Federal and State Historic Tax Credits to get there.
How The Watchlist Gets Made And How People Can Help
The National Trust for Historic Preservation builds this watchlist through nominations. Residents, Tribal nations, local historians, and preservation groups send detailed packets that explain each site’s story, the threat, and the type of action that could keep it standing. The submission window for the 2025 lineup closed on October 15, 2024.
From there, the Trust blasts the story nationwide. The group uses press calls, donor outreach, and policy work to pull in money, engineers, and legal attention for places that would otherwise be ignored. You can read the Trust’s overview to see how naming a site often sparks grants, high-level meetings, and even federal involvement. National Trust overview.
The table below shows, in plain terms, what each place needs next — the make-or-break step locals say would keep it out of the danger zone.
Action Table: What Each Place Needs Next
| Place | Urgent Step | Lead Group |
|---|---|---|
| Cedar Key, FL | Raise wood houses, build “living shoreline” buffers, upgrade drainage by the historic cemetery | City of Cedar Key with Florida Trust and University of Florida planners |
| French Broad / Swannanoa, NC | Cash for flood repairs and smarter rebuilding of riverfront districts without erasing their past | Preservation Society of Asheville & Buncombe County |
| Hotel Casa Blanca, MI | Roughly $5M in rehab funds to reopen as lodging, gathering space, and a heritage learning center | 1st Neighbor LLC and the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund |
| May Hicks Curtis House, AZ | Find a permanent site, then restore, so the house isn’t bulldozed for new construction | City of Flagstaff and local partners |
| Mystery Castle, AZ | Stabilize cracked walls, tighten security, and add safe visitor paths during the one-year pause on demolition | Phoenix Historic Preservation Office and Friends of Mystery Castle |
| Oregon Caves Chateau, OR | Seismic and structural rehab so the lodge can safely reopen for guests and dining | National Park Service with Friends of the Oregon Caves and Chateau |
| Pamunkey Reservation, VA | Large-scale shoreline work plus documentation of Tribal life and history before land loss accelerates | Pamunkey Indian Tribe |
| San Juan Hotel, TX | Stop demolition and craft a reuse plan that openly acknowledges “La Matanza” and border violence | Save the San Juan Hotel Initiative and Hidalgo County Historical Commission |
| Terminal Island Tuna Street, CA | Landmark status and adaptive reuse instead of teardown for cargo storage lots | L.A. Conservancy and Terminal Islanders Association |
| The Turtle, NY | Repair the shell-like form, repaint the bold stripes, and reopen as a Native-run arts and language hub | Friends of The Niagara Turtle |
| The Wellington, NY | Roughly $7M for a new foundation, flood protection, sprinklers, and interior build-out | Wellington Blueberry LLC with town and county partners |
Why Saving These Places Still Matters
When a historic hotel collapses or a fishing village landmark gets cleared for a parking lot, the loss is not just bricks and boards. It erases proof that people lived here, built businesses, resisted Jim Crow, ran boats, shared music, and carved out safe gathering spots for each other.
There’s also a money angle. Oregon Caves Chateau drew travelers to rural Josephine County for decades, filling lodge jobs and feeding diners in Cave Junction. Cedar Key’s clam docks, stilt houses, and weathered storefronts shape a Gulf Coast town that still lives off seafood, small inns, and heritage tourism instead of high-rise condos. The Wellington in Pine Hill once anchored Catskills summers; plans now call for a grocery store, café, and workforce apartments that serve local needs while keeping the 1882 frame standing.
Preservation is not nostalgia. It’s evidence. The Turtle documents Native resilience after federal boarding schools tried to wipe out language and art. Terminal Island’s Tuna Street storefronts tell a blunt wartime story: Japanese American fishermen pushed off their docks, then sent to incarceration sites such as Manzanar, while their houses and shops were torn down. The San Juan Hotel holds witness to anti-Mexican terror in Texas and carries memories that residents refuse to let vanish under fresh stucco and a new conference center.
Losing these places would punch holes in the public record. Saving them keeps that record visible for students, travelers, Tribal citizens, and neighbors walking down the street with their kids.