The North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources is pleased to announce that 18 individual properties and districts across the state have been added to the National Register of Historic Places. The following properties were reviewed by the North Carolina National Register Advisory Committee and were subsequently approved by the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Officer and forwarded to the Keeper of the National Register.
"North Carolina is a leader in the nation's historic preservation movement, and the National Register is a vital tool in the preservation of our state's historic resources" said Susan Kluttz, Secretary of North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources. "If we count all of the buildings classified as contributing to the significance of historic districts listed in the Register, it is estimated that North Carolina has approximately 75,000 National Register properties."
The listing of a property in the National Register places no obligation or restriction on a private owner using private resources to maintain or alter the property. Over the years, various federal and state incentives have been introduced to assist private preservation initiatives, including tax credits for the rehabilitation of National Register properties. As of January 1, 2015, more than 3,100 rehabilitation projects with an estimated private investment of over $1.96 billion have been completed.
Eastern North Carolina
Standard Drug # 2, Kinston, Lenoir County, listed 12/01/14
Located near the county courthouse in Kinston, Standard Drug # 2, built from 1918 to 1924, had a racially-segregated lunch counter frequented by Kinston's white leaders and businessmen. Two Civil Rights movement sit-ins occurred during the early 1960s at the lunch counter in an effort to force its desegregation. The first sit-in occurred in 1960, shortly after the February 1960 Greensboro Woolworth's sit-in, during which three local African American high school students were able to gain service for one of the youths at the lunch counter. The second, larger sit-in was held in 1961 and led to the successful desegregation of the lunch counter. Boycotts and picketing that followed the 1961 sit-in at several of the most important downtown Kinston businesses brought about meetings between the protesters and downtown businessmen, including the owner of Standard Drug #2, resulting in desegregation of downtown Kinston businesses.
Everetts Historic District, Everetts, Martin County, listed 12/02/14
The Everetts Historic District encompasses most of the well-preserved rural railroad town in Martin County, featuring commercial and small industrial buildings, houses, and churches dating from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth century. The town sustained prosperity as a rural trading center serving local farmers with a variety of stores, a cotton gin and sawmill, and agricultural export facilities. The collection of historic buildings within the district exemplifies the architectural styles and forms found in small railroad towns in eastern North Carolina during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Central and Southeastern North Carolina
William Henry and Sarah Holderness House, Yanceyville vicinity, Caswell County, listed 12/02/14
The ca. 1855 William Henry and Sarah Holderness House has statewide significance as one of North Carolina's finest and most intact Greek Revival-style houses finished with interior woodwork by master artisan Thomas Day. Built for William Henry Holderness and his wife Sarah, the prominent two-story house features a low hip roof, a one-story, pedimented entrance portico with Doric columns, and one-story wings, each with a matching portico, that are a rare element of Greek Revival-style houses in North Carolina. The original smokehouse and carriage house to the rear create a well-preserved 1850s complex.
D. C. Umstead Store and House, Bahama vicinity, Durham County, listed 12/02/14
The D. C. Umstead Store and House, located near the small town of Bahama, served an important role in the commerce and communication of its rural community. The store was built ca. 1880, and from 1882 to 1903 it also operated as a post office. In the late 1870s storekeeper D. C. Umstead built the two-story frame house that contributes to the historic character and setting of the store, together with outbuildings dating to the late nineteenth century. The one-story frame store has a small post office space partitioned off on the interior and is a rare survivor of this rural building type in the county.
Old German Baptist Brethren Church, Winston-Salem vicinity, Forsyth County, listed 12/01/14
In 1860, a small group of Old German Baptist Brethren constructed a plain, heavy-timber frame building, and over time the church members remodeled and enlarged the church to accommodate their specific worship practices. The church featured an attached lovefeast kitchen where meat, soup, buttered bread, pickles and water were prepared for the silent meditation service, which included foot washing and communion. Other Brethren congregations worshipped at the church annually, and in 1942 the sanctuary was expanded and the main entrance moved to the long side wall. In 1950, the kitchen was expanded across the end wall, and the entire building covered in German siding. All three phases of construction are key elements in understanding the architectural significance of the building and its manifestation of the sect's worship practices.
Enterprise Building, High Point, Guilford County, listed 12/02/14
The Enterprise Building is architecturally important for its fully articulated Art Deco-style exterior. Originally two stories in height, the newspaper building was designed by High Point architect Tyson T. Ferree in 1935. The new stylish headquarters reflected the growing success of the publishing company. The pale gray cast stone façade of the original building was seamlessly replicated in the third story added in 1945. The remarkably intact building façade features a stylized classicism, including the full height fluted and incised pilasters, curving, solid brackets above the door, and the round-arched windows.
Proximity Print Works, Greensboro, Guilford County, listed 12/01/14
In the early twentieth century, the Cone family expanded their textile empire by broadening their product line to include printed fabric, which previously had been the domain of textile companies in the Northeast. The Proximity Print Works stands on the rail line that accessed all three of the Cone's Greensboro textile mills, Revolution, Proximity, and White Oak. Starting with raw cotton, denim, khaki, and another durable fabric, drill, were produced. The process of finishing and dyeing fabric at the extensive complex of buildings at Proximity Print Works is believed to be one of the largest such operations in North Carolina.
Savona Mill, Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, listed 12/02/14
The remarkably intact Savona Mill is architecturally significant for the sequence of mill construction methods featured in the building. The 1915-1916 one-story, brick and heavy-timber weave mill has a low-pitched gable and monitor roof and all of its nine-over-six wooden windows are still in place. The three-story spinning mill dating to 1921-1922 doubled the size of the textile mill, and its interior exhibits a combination of heavy-timber, metal, and concrete construction. In 1951, the building was expanded again with a large, three-story fireproof addition at the north end constructed of reinforced concrete and brick infill walls. Distinctive mushroom shaped columns provide interior structural support.
Brookwood Historic District, Wilmington, New Hanover County, listed 12/02/14
The Brookwood Historic District was platted in 1920 and 1927 and constructed near the terminus of the streetcar line, illustrating a shift away from city center neighborhoods to subdivisions at the perimeter of the city in the early twentieth century. Initially located just beyond the city limits and several blocks from the streetcar line, Brookwood is among the most intact of Wilmington's early to mid-twentieth-century middle-class suburbs. The development included municipal services such as water, sewer, gas, and electric lines, and a public park, a feature usually found only in more prestigious suburbs. Brookwood developers used the rising popularity of the automobile to their advantage, as advertisements for the development touted straight roads that offered easy access "without a turn or a curve." The district comprises houses constructed in a variety of early twentieth-century architectural styles, including Craftsman, Colonial Revival, Cape Cod, and Period Cottage. The district's continued development after World War II includes examples of the Minimal Traditional and Ranch styles.
Wingate Commerical Historic District, Wingate, Union County, listed 12/01/14
Wingate Commercial Historic District, a cluster of brick one- and two-story commercial buildings dating from ca. 1904 to ca. 1925, was built immediately north of the railroad line and depot in the center of town. The Austin Store, the State Bank of Wingate, the Wingate Drug Company Store, and Katie Lee Austin's dress shop long served the community and the nearby Wingate College. Through the loss and substantial alteration of other older commercial buildings in the town center, this group of buildings is now the only intact collection of historic commercial buildings in Wingate.
Barker House, Henderson vicinity, Vance County, listed 12/01/14
The Barker House, one of Vance County's oldest extant dwellings, is a remarkably intact rural North Carolina plantation house built during the eighteenth century's third quarter. The modest one-and-one-half-story, side-gable-roofed, weatherboarded residence manifests the lasting influence of traditional building practices brought south from tidewater Maryland and Virginia as settlers from those colonies populated North Carolina's northeastern counties. Surry County, Virginia, native Ambrose Barker is the earliest identified owner of the heavy-timber-frame dwelling that has been known as the Barker House for most of its history. He likely occupied the original one-room house soon after its construction around 1764. Dendrochronology results indicate that carpenters expanded the residence with a second room ten years later, perhaps coinciding with Ambrose Barker and Mary Ann Ragland's November 1773 marriage.
Garland Scott and Toler Moore Tucker House, Raleigh, Wake County, listed 12/10/14
The Garland Scott and Toler Moore Tucker House is an imposing example of the Southern Colonial Revival-style in Raleigh. Tucker, a successful Raleigh businessman, owned a chain of furniture stores in eastern North Carolina. The then-fashionable 1914 frame house with its distinctive semi-circular monumental Ionic entrance portico stands out among the city's classical revival style houses.
Wachovia Building Company Contemporary Ranch House, Raleigh, Wake County, listed 12/10/14
This 1951 contemporary Ranch house is individually important for its distinctive Ranch house design, and it has retained a very high level of integrity from the original construction. The house is named after the construction company responsible for its design, and is one of several houses that developer Ed Richards and the Wachovia Building Company had built on speculation in the up and coming Cameron Village neighborhood. The rectangular-shaped house is oriented perpendicular to the street, rather than parallel, as most Ranch houses were.
Albemarle Graded School--Central Elementary School, Albemarle, Stanly County, listed 12/02/14
The Albemarle Graded School - Central Elementary School is historically important as it served as the city's only public graded school from 1921 to 1933. To accommodate a growing student population and to provide up-to-date facilities, additional classrooms, a cafeteria, and an auditorium were constructed in 1952 and 1965. Both school expansions are of local architectural significance for their distinctive modernist designs.
Wayland H. and Mamie Burt Stevens House, Fuquay-Varina, Wake County, listed 12/10/14
The 1936 Wayland H. and Mamie Burt Stevens House is significant as a remarkably intact example of a Colonial Revival-style house from the early twentieth century in Fuquay-Varina. Its restrained use of the style's distinctive features includes symmetrical massing, an entry portico, a front door with fanlight and sidelights, double-hung sash, and a classical mantel. It is one of only a few houses built in Fuquay-Varina in the late 1930s in the Colonial Revival-style, a style which began to appear in the town in the first decade of the twentieth century and continued to be used through the late 1930s.
Western North Carolina
Cockerham Mill, Jefferson vicinity, Ashe County, listed 12/10/14
Located east of the county seat of Jefferson, the Cockerham Mill is an intact complex including the ca. 1884-1899 mill and dry-laid stone dam, ca. 1899 miller's house, 1912 miller's house and barn, and a ca. 1920 molasses cooking shed. As one of only four extant nineteenth-century mills in Ashe County-whose economy once relied heavily on milling-the Cockerham Mill is the best preserved example of a buhr stone-type mill and is significant in the county's industrial history.
Jacob S. Mauney Memorial Library and Teachers' Home, Kings Mountain, Cleveland County, listed 12/16/15
Located in a residential neighborhood just east of downtown Kings Mountain, the Jacob S. Mauney Memorial Library and Teachers' Home was constructed circa 1923 as a monumental Southern Colonial Revival-style residence for a local physician. In 1947, the house was purchased by the children of local industrialist Jacob S. Mauney and donated to the town of Kings Mountain for use as a public library and teacherage. With a period of significance from 1947 to 1964, the property is significant for education and social history in Kings Mountain.
Flat Rock Historic District Boundary Increase, Boundary Decrease and Additional Documentation, Flat Rock, Henderson County, listed 2/27/15
Listed in the National Register for more than forty years, the Flat Rock Historic District documentation and district boundaries have been re-examined in a newly completed nomination that fully describes and delineates the historic buildings and landscapes in the resort community and reexamines the town's twentieth-century development and architecture through 1965. Boundaries have been re-drawn to remove areas that have lost their historic integrity through new construction and subdivision redevelopment, while other intact acreage associated with the estates and year-round resort growth have been added.
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