Just an attempt to set the ball rolling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historic_preservation

History of Historic Preservation
Although the actual term "historic preservation" did not become popular until the 1960s, the act of conserving historic places dates back to the mid-17th Century. At this time, wealthy Englishmen consistently collected historic artifacts, leading to their preservation. It was not until 1913 though that historic preservation became a part of English law. In that year the Ancient Monuments Act in the United Kingdom officially preserved structures there with historical interest.
In 1944, preservation became a major component to planning in the U.K. when the Town and Country Planning Act put the preservation of historic places into the forefront of laws and approval of planning projects. In 1990, another Town and Country Planning Act passed and the protection of public buildings grew even more.

In the United States, the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities was founded in 1889 in Richmond, Virginia as the first state historic preservation group in the country. From there, other areas followed suit and in 1930, Simons and Lapham, an architectural firm, helped created the first historic preservation law in South Carolina. Shortly thereafter, the French Quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana became the second area to fall under a new preservation law.

The preservation of historic places then hit the national scene in 1949 when the U.S. National Trust for Historic Preservation developed a specific set of goals for preservation. The organization’s mission statement claimed that it aimed to protect structures providing leadership and education and that it also wanted to "save America’s diverse historic places and revitalize [its] communities."
http://geography.about.com/od/urbaneconomicgeography/a/histo...