Independent historical verification

Every fact a city guide tells you should have a historian behind it.

Historians Review is the independent editorial check behind StrollTour. Every landmark Marcus narrates is drafted from published sources, then read by a historian who verifies each fact against primary records: National Register nominations, city designation reports, archives, and the institutions themselves. Nothing goes live until it passes, and every correction is recorded with who checked it, against what, and when.

18landmarks in review 0verified so far —individual claims checked

How it works

Six steps between a source and a sentence

Drafted from published sources.
Each landmark entry is written from named sources, listed with the entry. Nothing is written from memory.
Every claim extracted.
Each date, name, style, and "first" or "oldest" in the entry is pulled into a numbered list, with the source it should be checked against.
Primary records attached.
Where a designation report or a National Register nomination exists, it is attached to the entry so the reviewer checks the record, not a summary of it.
A historian verifies.
The reviewer marks each claim correct, corrected, or unverifiable, with a citation for every correction. Unverifiable claims are rephrased cautiously or removed.
Recorded.
Who reviewed it, when, and against which version of the text. If the text changes later, the review is reopened.
Then, and only then, live.
The guide can only say what the verified entry says. He never adds a fact of his own.

The reviewers

Who checks the work

Paul Steven Millander

History educator, Ed.S. · Reviewer

Paul Millander has taught history for more than thirty years, helping students see how the past shapes the world they live in. He grew up in Hokes Bluff, Alabama, attended Gadsden State Community College, and holds bachelor's degrees from Jacksonville State University in management and marketing and in secondary education with a focus on social science, and an Education Specialist degree in curriculum and instruction from Lincoln Memorial University. His teaching has always asked students to think critically, weigh different perspectives, and check the story against the record, which is exactly the work he does here.

Placeholder: photo and paragraph to come

[Historian name]

Historian · Reviewer

[One paragraph in the historian's own words: where they taught or studied, the periods and places they know best, and why verified local history matters to them. About 60 to 90 words.]

Independence, stated plainly. Historians Review's reviewers are independent historians. Where a reviewer also advises StrollTour, Inc. or holds an interest in it, this page says so. StrollTour carries no advertising and takes no money from the places it describes, so the only thing standing behind what its guide says is the evidence. Historians Review is how that evidence is made real.

Standards

What counts as a source

Every date, architect, style, and superlative must trace to a primary or scholarly source. In order of preference:

National Register of Historic Places nomination forms (National Park Service)
Municipal landmark designation reports (in Atlanta, the Urban Design Commission)
Historic American Buildings Survey (Library of Congress)
SAH Archipedia (Society of Architectural Historians)
The New Georgia Encyclopedia and comparable state encyclopedias
The institution's own records: the National Park Service, a church, a museum, a library
Contemporaneous press, for events and dates

Encyclopedias written by the public and aggregator sites are used as pointers to sources, never as sources. Contested history is described as contested. Where a widely repeated story cannot be traced to a record, it is said to be a story.

Report an error

Heard something wrong?

Tell us the landmark, what was said, and what you believe is correct, with a source if you have one. Reports go to the reviewers, and corrections are made in the app without waiting for a release.

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