Gaston County Begins Architectural Survey Update of Dallas with Grant Funds from N.C. State Historic Preservation Office

Gaston County has been awarded a 2018 federal Historic Preservation Fund grant administered by the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office (HPO). The grant award is $6,000 and is matched by the Town of Dallas for a total project budget of $10,000. The funds will be used to resurvey historic properties within the National Register of Historic Places Historic District in Dallas, and to conduct a new survey of historic buildings outside the district. The county has hired Landmark Preservation Associates, a Lexington, Virginia-based cultural resources consulting firm, to complete the project. Dan Pezzoni, a principal of the firm, is the Project Manager.
 
Scheduled for completion in fall 2019, the project involves the update or creation of approximately 100 survey files for resources built prior to 1975. Mr. Pezzoni will be in Dallas on March 21 for a public kickoff meeting introducing the project, scheduled for 6 p.m. in the Community Room of the Dallas Fire Department, 209 W. Main St. 
 
Mr. Pezzoni will return to Dallas between March and June 2019 to conduct fieldwork. He also will meet with representatives of the town and local historians, and local leaders have agreed to form a committee of subject-matter experts to advise his research. In addition to documenting properties with photographs, written descriptions, and oral and archival history, Mr. Pezzoni will identify properties that appear to be potentially eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places, either individually or as districts, and thus potentially eligible for state and federal tax credits for certified historic rehabilitation. The project will culminate in a brief final report that analyzes the history of Dallas through the lens of its historic architecture. 
 
The Dallas Historic District, bounded by Holland, Main, Gaston, and Trade streets, was enrolled in the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, and additional documentation of the district was submitted to the Keeper of the National Register in 1996. Mr. Pezzoni’s project will lay the groundwork to update the historic district nomination, if desired.
 
At the conclusion of the project, the HPO will share the digital files with the county and municipal government. Public access to the information will be available through HPOWEB, the HPO’s geographic information system, which is accessible online at http://gis.ncdcr.gov/hpoweb/. The survey material will facilitate the environmental review necessary for state and federal undertakings and will aid in planning for future economic and community development projects. Survey products also will be useful for the continued development of heritage tourism programs in Dallas.  
 
For more information on the architectural survey update of Dallas, contact Elizabeth C. King, Architectural Survey Coordinator for the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office, at elizabeth.king@ncdcr.gov or 919-814-6580, or Tiffany Faro, Development Service Director for Town of Dallas, at tfaro@dallasnc.net or 704-922-3176