The Tour 250 web platform and mobile app, created in partnership with Bloomberg Connects, provides users a map of the 25 newly minted historic sites in each of Boston’s neighborhoods, in an interactive experience bringing Boston’s past and present to life with expert-curated content and audio recordings from local experts and historians such as Andrea Kalyn, President of the New England Conservatory; Brooks Tingle, President and CEO of John Hancock; City Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune; and David Leonard, President of the Boston Public Library. In addition to the 25 new markers, Tour 250’s digital guide features 100+ additional historic locations, illuminating mini neighborhood-based walking tours and stories that have not been previously uplifted.

Tour 250 is an integral part of Boston 250, the City’s campaign celebrating Boston-as the birthplace of the American Revolution, the cradle of liberty, and a beacon of bold ideas, resistance, civic action, and collective progress.

Through the recently launched Boston Stands For campaign, these new markers, and the Boston250.org website developed in partnership with Meet Boston, the City is expanding visibility into neighborhood trailblazers and unique historic sites, while driving more foot traffic to Main Streets districts to support the local businesses that form the backbone of Boston’s communities.

“Historic markers help us see the city more clearly,” said Kathy Kottaridis, Director of the Office of Historic Preservation. “They bring forward the diverse people, places, and events that shaped Boston and ensure that the stories visible in our public landscape reflect the full richness of our communities. By marking these histories where they happened, we give residents and visitors perspective and a place in the long, evolving story of our continually changing city.”

Locations for the first 25 markers were selected by a special task force of the Boston Commemoration Commission. The placards will be installed at sites across the city this summer. Below is the full list of the initial 25 markers to be installed through the City’s Historic Marker Program:

• Allston – Allston Rock City
• Ashmont – A Model for Compassionate Care for Adults with Chronic Illness
• Bowdoin/Geneva – First Public Elementary School in the United States
• Brighton – Buggs Village
• Chinatown – Earliest Chinese Property Ownership in Boston
• Codman Square – A Community’s Social and Physical Health Advocacy
• East Boston – First Branch Library in the United States
• Egleston Square – A Landmark for Bilingual Education
• Fenway – Florence Price: A Composer in the Making
• Fields Corner – A Gathering Space for Boston’s Vietnamese Community
• Bowdoin/Geneva – Boston’s Embassy of Cape Verdean Culture
• Grove Hall – Boston’s Freedom School Movement
• Hyde Park – Hyde Park Women Protest for Voting Rights in 1870
• Hyde Square – Youth First in Hyde Square
• JP Centre/South – Stitching the Early Modern Baseball
• Roxbury/Nubian – The RAP House
• Mattapan Square – The Heart of Haitian Mattapan
• Mattapan Square – Stone from Fire: The Mattapan Rhyolite Quarry
• Mission Hill – Tenants’ Fight Against Expansion in Mission Hill
• Roslindale – Powering a Streetcar Suburb
• Seaport – Fan Pier and Boston’s Spirit of Innovation
• South Boston – Laura Bridgman’s Perkins School for the Blind
• Upham’s Corner – World’s First Supermarket
• West Roxbury – Transcendentalism & the 54th Regiment
• Four Corners – Roswell Gleason and Dorchester’s Metalware Industry

This initiative builds on broader efforts across Boston to create a more inclusive and representative understanding of the city’s past and present. The City’s markers program was inspired in part by Everyone250, a coalition of more than 250 organizations across Boston’s arts and cultural landscape, which has been unveiling new markers across Boston. In February 2026, Mayor Wu announced a partnership between Boston 250 and Everyone250, to support the installation of 20 Everyone250 markers throughout Boston.

“Everyone250 was founded on the belief that Boston’s history is bigger, more diverse and more interconnected than many of the stories traditionally commemorated in our public spaces.” said Imari Paris Jeffries, Ph.D., Embrace Boston CEO and Everyone250 Co-Chair. “By supporting new markers, monuments, and storytelling initiatives across the city, we are ensuring that more communities can see their histories reflected in Boston’s landscape. Tour 250 represents another opportunity to connect people with the individuals and institutions that helped shape our city – we’re proud to work alongside the City and our partners to make Boston’s history more visible, accessible, and inclusive for all.”

As part of this partnership, Everyone250 has already unveiled markers commemorating Twelfth Baptist Church, the Boston Public Schools Desegregation Movement, the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute, the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, and the Vilna Shul. Additional Everyone250 unveilings are planned throughout the year, and all Everyone250 monuments, markers, and historic sites are featured on the coalition’s growing interactive map, as well as on Tour 250.

The Historic Markers Program will bring historic preservation and placemaking beyond downtown, installing physical placards that highlight local histories within each of Boston’s 23 historic neighborhoods. Beyond the initial 25 markers, OHP will continue to install new permanent historic markers through Boston’s 400th anniversary in 2030. The City’s Edward Ingersoll Browne Fund is simultaneously awarding $7,500 planning grants to 21 nonprofit organizations to do historic documentation to research on potential future markers in Boston. This program ensures that Boston’s diverse communities will have a say in choosing the locations and stories that express the history of their neighborhoods.

ABOUT BOSTON 250

Boston 250 is a yearlong commemoration of Boston’s role in the American Revolution and the legacy of activism and innovation that is woven throughout the history of the city and its people. As the world comes to Boston for the Summer of 2026, Boston 250 is working with state and local partners to shape a new, more inclusive experience of Boston’s revolutionary past and present for residents and tourists. Boston 250 is made possible in part by private sector partners, including Meet Boston, State Street, The Boston Foundation, John Hancock, Eastern Bank, Liberty Mutual, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and PNC Bank.

ABOUT EVERYONE 250:

In February 2025, Everyone250 was launched as a coalition of more than 250 organizations, artists, educators, and advocates across Boston’s arts and cultural sector working to reimagine how history is told and who gets to tell it. Through community storytelling, cultural activations, public art, historical markers, immersive events, and an interactive digital map, Everyone250 celebrates the voices, people, and places that have shaped Boston but have too often been overlooked in traditional narratives.