Historic Harmony will bring back its building marker program to identify buildings.

HARMONY — Residents interested in their buildings’ histories will soon have an opportunity to display that information.

Historic Harmony will soon reintroduce its building marker program.

Identification markers can be bought by residents and business owners to place on their buildings.

“There’s been a lot of renovations and restorations, so there’s new interest in people identifying buildings,” said Historic Harmony President John Ruch.

The marker program started in the early 1990s with more than a dozen buildings receiving a marker including the Harmony Museum, the Weaver House and the borough building.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve offered these things,” said Ruch. “It was not really a fundraiser at all for us, but we didn’t lose money either.”

However the program stalled in the mid-1990s after the West Virginia company that made the markers went out of business.

Ruch said the decision to reintroduce the program came from renewed interest from residents.

“We weren’t really interested in pursuing it when there was only one party interested, but it now looks like there are several,” he said.

Each marker will be made out of synthetic material. The original ones were made out of wood.

They will be about two inches thick, slightly thicker than the original markers and will measure 14 inches by 24 inches.

Costs have not been determined for markers, which will be manufactured by Butler-based manufacturer KeyGrafix.

Ruch said the design for the markers has received approval from the borough and can be put up by residents and business owners once they receive them with no additional approvals.

Markers will have the name of the current owner of each respective place and the original name of the house. They also will have Historic Harmony’s logo on it and the date when the building was built.

It will be up to property owners to determine who the original owners of their respective places were.

Ruch said if there is a disagreement between property owners and the historical society over identification of buildings, the historical society will make recommendations.

“It helps visitors and even other local residents to recognize what an individual building is or was originally,” Ruch said. “It also gives the property owner an opportunity to brag about their building a little bit in one way or another.”