Historic Headstone Preservation with Amy Barry, SHPO

Preservation Utah is hosting a webinar on historic headstone preservation with Amy Barry of the Utah State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) on Monday, November 2. It runs from 1 PM to 2 PM MST, and since it's a webinar, you can tune in from wherever you are.

The session is framed around Día de los Muertos and the memory of ancestors, and it's built around the idea that keeping the names, inscriptions, and craftsmanship of the past alive helps preserve the stories of the people who came before us. Barry will walk through the history of historic cemeteries and explain why headstones matter as irreplaceable pieces of cultural heritage. From there, the talk moves into practical approaches to caring for them—the kind of hands-on information that's useful if you've ever spent an afternoon in an old cemetery and wondered how to actually help keep those stones legible.

Amy Barry comes to this from the Utah State Historic Preservation Office, so the perspective is rooted in the state's own preservation work. The whole thing is presented by Preservation Utah, which has been advocating for the state's historic buildings and landscapes for years. If you've ever felt a pull toward the quiet, overlooked corners of our local history, this is a good way to get a bit of a primer on how to protect them.

It's a one-hour session on Monday, November 2, from 1 PM to 2 PM MST, held online as a webinar.