RECOMMENDATIONS
 
Recommendations for the Registration and Protection of Resources

A. Survey and Research Needs
 
It is believed that the resources surveyed by the Town of Perry Intensive Survey have been adequately documented and further survey work is not recommended. 
 
Future research needs have already been suggested in the Architects and Builders theme.  These include: studying the various census tracts pertaining to the Town that are kept at the Wisconsin Historical Society in order to identify inhabitants calling themselves builders or contractors (i.e. masons, carpenters, etc.); and undertaking a systematic search of Dane, Green, Iowa & Lafayette County newspapers that might have covered the Town of Perry, including especially Daleyville Doings, in order to identify building activity in the Town and the persons related to it.  Microfilm copies of some of these newspapers are available at other Dane County community libraries and all of them are available at the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, and these are the best and virtually the only resources available for such a study.  Both of these are projects that should ideally be undertaken by local historical societies, and it is believed that the database created by the intensive survey will be of benefit to these efforts.  Other needed research efforts should concentrate on the potentially eligible individual resources noted in the preceding section.  In addition, an immediate effort should be made to identify any areas within the Town that might contain either prehistoric or historic archeological remains.

B. National Register Listings and Determinations of Eligibility

The Town of Perry currently has one listing in the National Register.  This listed resource is: the Hauge Log Church (NRHP 12-31-74), located on CTH Z in Section 7.

C. Threats to Resources

The major threat to the historic resources in the Town of Perry is the rural nature of the Town and the problems that come with it.  Nearly all of the resources located in the Town except for those located in Daleyville are associated with farms and most, but not all of these are working farms whose owners are involved in the day-to-day economic struggle that farming has become in Wisconsin.  Making a decent living is difficult if you farm for a living and being the owner of an historic farmstead often means making decisions that work to the disadvantage of the historic resources that are located on such farms.  For instance, does one keep and repair an old machine shed when you have just invested in new machinery that is too large for it?  Do you spend money repainting your historic farmhouse when this money may be needed for some other more important use on the farm, and if so, do you then decide to reside your house instead of repainting it?  Such questions are part of the daily existence of farmers today and too often, the answer has to be one that is detrimental to the historic resources a farmer might otherwise wish to preserve.  One of the biggest problems farmers have is maintaining older, obsolete farm outbuildings.  Add to this the fact that the farming population is an aging one and you have a situation that presents problems for historic preservation. 

The other major threat to the historic resources in the Town is growth.  The continuing growth that the city of Madison and its satellite communities is experiencing and the ongoing expansion of the urban area surrounding Madison in particular is now putting pressure on other cities and villages throughout the county.  The Madison metropolitan area's greatly increased population has already all but completely enveloped those formerly rural communities located nearest to the cities of Madison and Sun Prairie such as Burke and Token Creek, and those near the village of DeForest, such as Windsor and Morrisonville.  The growth of Madison is also affecting most of the other communities in the county as well such as the city of Mt. Horeb, nearly all of which have experienced substantial growth of their own in the past decade and are expecting to experience even more in the current one.  With this growth has come the need for more and larger roads, more services, larger and newer public facilities, and more and larger stores, all of which is having and will continue to have an impact on the existing historic infrastructure in the county.

What this growth means for the Town of Perry is that new buyers are appearing for the Town's farm land, but unlike the buyers of the past, these new buyers are not interested in farming.  Unfortunately, the most valuable asset most farmers have is their land, and judging from the increasing number of new houses that dot the rural countryside in the Town, it is clear that land in the Town is now being sold to new owners who don't farm and who are often even less inclined to keep up a large collection of historic farm outbuildings then was the previous owner. 

A very different set of problems confronts the hamlets of Forward and Daleyville.  Forward now contains only a handful of buildings and is on the brink of vanishing altogether while Daleyville, despite having a good collection of historic residential buildings, is seeing little new growth.  The reasons for this are complicated but they essentially boil down to the fact that these places currently have no retail establishments and are located too far away from goods and services to attract population.  This means that the ability of these places to function as true communities is limited, which makes it even harder for them to protect their historic resources.  Absentee ownership is also a problem.  Beginning in the 1930s and continuing to the present, a number of the older owner-occupied single family residential buildings in the Town were converted into either single family or multi-family rental housing, a change that was often accompanied by interior and exterior alterations.  As part of the same process, the ownership of many of these buildings shifted from an owner-occupied to an absentee status and this has often been attended by a gradual lessening of maintenance standards and by the casual construction of inappropriately designed income-producing additions.

The intensive survey also noted that the Town contains many older buildings of all kinds that would have been surveyed except for the fact that they have been poorly remodeled; inappropriate additions, siding choices and window replacement choices being the most common problems.  Thus, there is clearly room for improvement in terms of educating property owners as to the range of options that should be considered when remodeling or restoration projects are contemplated.

D. National Register Priorities

The top priority for listing in the National Register should be the most threatened of the resources that have been recommended for listing.  The most vulnerable of these resources would appear to be the stone barn located on the Syftestad Farm on STH 78, which appears to be vacant and is either not being used or is being used only for storage.  

E. Community Strategies for Historic Preservation

The most effective means by which to implement meaningful historic preservation in the Town of Perry is through the enactment of local landmarks ordinances and the simultaneous creation of a local landmarks commission.  Such a commission is the most effective way to protect historic resources and it is also potentially a community's most effective potential educational tool as well.  Fortunately, the Town of Perry already possesses these things.

An important step in increasing public awareness of historic preservation was taken in 2005, when the Town of Perry's Historic Preservation Commission successfully applied to the DHP for a Survey and Planning grant that could be used to fund an intensive survey of the Town.  The Commission's intent in funding such a survey was twofold; to create a data base of information about the historic resources in the Town, and to identify properties that might be eligible for the NRHP.  Both of these goals have now been realized and the successful first public meeting that was held in conjunction with this survey suggests that there is also local interest in historic preservation.

The principal questions that the Town now needs to answer are: "How can it best make use of the information generated by the survey to better inform the public about the historic resources in their midst?" and "How can public opinion be mobilized to place a higher value on these resources?"  The answer seems to be largely a matter of education.  The Town now has much of the information it needs to assess the importance of the buildings in the survey area and the survey also identified buildings in the survey areas that may meet NRHP criteria for listing.  Therefore, one of the best courses for the Town to follow would appear to be to sponsor the nomination of some of these buildings to the NRHP as a way of demonstrating to these communities that they do, in fact, contain notable historic resources.

Listing these resources in the NRHP is an important step because people must first be made aware of their historic resources before they will place a value on them and be motivated to preserve them.  Listing these resources is also a good way of introducing the community to the criteria that the National Register uses to evaluate buildings and districts.  And finally, listing  these resources would also be a way of showing that a number of the historic resources in the county that are privately owned stand to benefit from available restoration-related Federal and State tax credits.  This is especially true of some of the Town's farmsteads, which, as working farms, would be eligible for both State and Federal tax credit programs.
 
The need for getting more and better information into the hands of the public is clear.  For instance, the intensive survey found that a number of buildings in the survey areas that might otherwise have been eligible for listing in the NRHP have been rendered ineligible because they have been resided, most often with inappropriate materials or with materials that are different in scale from the originals such as when wide gauge metal or vinyl clapboard is used to replace narrower gauge original siding.  By disseminating information that is readily available from the NRHP and the DHP about the value of maintaining a building's original appearance and by making the public aware of the fact that new siding of an appropriate size is now widely available, the Town can help the public make better informed decisions about renovation projects.  
 
Informational brochures that touch on remodeling issues and the tax advantages of NRHP listings can also be made available by the Town as part of its education effort.  Finally, lectures and workshops given by the members of the DHP can be used to better inform the community about preservation issues and techniques.