This is a project created and maintained by Jason O. Watson to catalog the various historical markers in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and beyond. At the time this project began (January 2004) there currently was no comprehensive listing of all of Virginia's historical markers. Since then, the Commonwealth (and other states) have put up detailed sites with photos, GPS coordinates and other information. Often, information available for these historical markers only refers to their existence, and does not give an adequate representation of how to actually find a specific marker. The data gathered for this project includes longitude/latitude coordinates compiled from a GPS device. This information can be viewed from the interactive map feature. Historical markers are listed with their high resolution photograph, description, and location. Many localities within Virginia maintain their own historic marker programs, depicting the histories of local people, events, and communities -- as discovered, these markers are included as well. Markers are named and numbered based on their state, location and/or order of discovery. For example, Virginia organizes their markers based (generally) on the road in which they were placed (A-series markers on US 11, W-series on US250, etc.) This system was established in the late 1920's and over time, there have been several exceptions to this very general rule. Other states, such as West Virginia and Louisiana have no obvious numbering system -- in this case, I have simply named the marker in the order that I found it (i.e. WV001, WV002, etc.). While this project initially focused on Virginia, it has since expanded to the entire United States with the goal of providing the largest and most diverse collection of historical marker photographs and information available in a single location.