The North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources is pleased to announce that one district boundary increase, two districts, and four individual properties 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 nominated by the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Officer and forwarded to the Keeper of the National Register for consideration for listing in the National Register.
“North Carolina continues to be a leader in the nation’s historic preservation movement, and the National Register is a vital tool in the preservation of our state’s treasured historic resources,” said Secretary Susi Hamilton, N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. “When we add new properties to the register, we are continuing to expand and diversify the story of North Carolina."
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 Jan. 1, 2020, over 3,933 historic rehabilitation projects with an estimated private investment of over $3.043 billion have been completed.
In Eastern North Carolina
Colerain Historic District [u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net], Colerain, Bertie County, listed 4/3/2020
The Colerain Historic District is locally significant for listing in the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion C in the area of Architecture. Colerain retains a collection of residential, commercial, religious, and public buildings that illustrate a wide range of architectural styles and vernacular forms that align with the town's major periods of growth during the Period of Significance from 1846 to 1970. These buildings reflect national trends in architectural styles and influences including Greek Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, Neoclassical Revival, Craftsman Bungalow, Tudor Revival, Period Cottage, Minimal Traditional, Cape Cod, Split Level and Ranch-style residential architecture. Some dwellings are identified by their forms, such as I-house, triple-A, gable-and-wing, side-gable, gable-front and saddle bag, rather than styles. Representative and modest examples of national architectural influences are also seen in the commercial, religious and public buildings of Colerain. Religious architecture exhibits the Gothic Revival style, while commercial and public buildings exhibit variations on mid- to late-20th century commercial styles, as well as Art Deco and Modernist style.
In Central North Carolina
Granite-Cora-Holt Mills Historic District [u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net], Haw River, Alamance County, listed 4/23/2020
The Granite-Cora-Holt Mills Historic District includes three textile plants sited along the Haw River, in Alamance County, historically related by ownership and/or function throughout their operation. Members of local textile empire family, the Holts, first acquired Granite Mill in 1858. Thomas Holt organized the textile concern that bore his name in 1876 and headed what grew to be a three-mill complex operated by Granite, Thomas M. Holt and Cora manufacturing companies. In 1893, the complex was the largest and most productive Alamance County manufacturing operation. The mills’ workforce increased in conjunction with production capacity, making Haw River Alamance County’s second-largest town after Burlington by 1895. The complex grew and adapted over time to remain viable. In 1936, the plants were responsible for 10 percent of the United States’ total corduroy production. The district is significant in the area of industry, as it encompasses the primary textile manufacturers that drove the community’s economic and physical growth from the mid-19th century until 1997. The district is also significant for architecture due to its collection of intact resources that display distinctive elements of late-19th to mid-20th -century industrial design. Granite Mill was also individually listed in the National Register in 2017.
Bynum Bridge [u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net], Bynum, Chatham County, listed 4/23/2020
Bynum Bridge was constructed 1922-1923 and extends 806.1 feet in 19 spans across the scenic Haw River at the rural mill village of Bynum in Chatham County. It survives as the longest unaltered reinforced concrete tee beam bridge in the state. Tee beam construction was first employed by the State Highway Commission in 1920 and used in hundreds of bridges through the 1950s, though most were of four or fewer spans and under 250 feet in length. Now preserved as a pedestrian bridge and used by the community for nature activities and special events, Bynum Bridge remains North Carolina’s most prominent example of a bridge form of high importance to early 20th-century highway engineering. Located where bridges have crossed the Haw since at least the mid-19th century, Bynum Bridge is significant for its associations with the development of the regional transportation network during the “Good Roads State” movement in the early 20th century.
Mooresville Historic District (Boundary Increase) [u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net], Mooresville, Iredell County, listed 4/23/2020
The Mooresville Historic District (Boundary Increase) includes two areas that expand the original district, listed in 1980. The boundary increase broadens the district to encompass a full range of building trends associated with the early settlement and development of towns such as Mooresville. While the original district was mostly confined to the commercial core of Mooresville, the areas included in the boundary increase developed concurrently with the Town of Mooresville beginning in the late-19th century through the mid-20th century as a residential neighborhood for the town’s most prominent citizens. As such, the boundary increase is significant in the area of Community Planning and Development. It is also significant for Architecture for its impressive collection of domestic architecture representing a range of types, periods and methods of construction reflecting the city’s growth and development. The boundary increase area’s earliest houses are Queen Anne and Italianate in style. Craftsman bungalows, Colonial Revival houses, and Period Cottages exhibiting restrained Tudor Revival influences reflect the greatest period of development of the boundary increase area between 1900 and the 1930s.
Reid Memorial Presbyterian Church [u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net], Mooresville, Iredell County, listed 4/23/2020
Reid Memorial Presbyterian Church, constructed ca.1882 and remodeled in 1941 is significant for Ethnic Heritage: African American and Social History as the first and only surviving historically African American Presbyterian church and congregation in Mooresville. The congregation was established during the Reconstruction Era as part of a national movement by northern missionaries to organize separate African American Presbyterian congregations following the Civil War. From its founding to the present, the church has continued to be an important gathering place for the African American community in Mooresville and Iredell County. Reid Memorial Presbyterian Church is also architecturally significant as a fine example of modest Gothic Revival religious architecture in Iredell County, particularly amongst predominantly African American communities that emerged along the fringes of towns during Reconstruction. The church retains its original Gothic Revival-influenced central engaged tower and window fenestration, while also reflecting mid-20th century exterior upgrades. These upgrades reveal the congregation’s prosperity and prominence at the time.
Cedar Grove School [u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net], Cedar Grove vicinity, Orange County, listed 4/23/2020
Cedar Grove School is significant for education and African American ethnic heritage as a facility providing education to African American students in northern rural Orange County from 1951 to 1969. The school’s history chronicles the advancement of African American education in rural Orange County in the mid-20th century in the context of a segregated school system. Cedar Grove School, as an important pre-integration elementary school, evokes the period in Orange County when African American students, parents, teachers, and administrators struggled for their schools to receive funding, materials and buildings comparable to white schools. Cedar Grove School is also significant for architecture as a locally significant example of modernism as applied to a public school building. Designed by architect Archie Royal Davis, Cedar Grove School’s low slung, flat-roofed form with copious windows to allow natural light into the classrooms epitomized modernist school design in North Carolina in the 1950s and 1960s.
Schley Grange Hall [u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net], Schley vicinity, Orange County, listed 4/23/2020
Built in 1949, Schley Grange Hall is significant in the area of social history as the Orange County agricultural community of Schley’s primary meeting place and recreational center. Schley Grange No. 710 has been the area’s largest fraternal association since its 1931 creation at the height of the North Carolina Grange’s 20th-century revitalization. Subsidized by a $50,000 national community service award from Sears-Roebuck Foundation, Schley Grange Hall replaced the decommissioned frame public school where the group had previously gathered. The Grange hosted educational and recreational events and encouraged the agricultural extension service, healthcare providers, American Legion Post 452, and the community at large to do the same. Facilities including a concession building/cook house, baseball/softball field, and horseshoe pitching pits were added by 1960 and supplemented through the early-21st-century with a picnic shelter, restroom building and batting cage.
NOTE TO EDITORS -- All of the above images are available in a higher resolution on our Flickr site [u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net].
About the National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the nation's official list of buildings, structures, objects, sites, and districts worthy of preservation for their significance in American history, architecture, archaeology, and culture. The National Register was established by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 to ensure that as a matter of public policy, properties significant in national, state, and local history are considered in the planning of federal undertakings, and to encourage historic preservation initiatives by state and local governments and the private sector. The Act authorized the establishment of a State Historic Preservation Office in each state and territory to help administer federal historic preservation programs.
In North Carolina, the State Historic Preservation Office is an agency of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. Dr. Kevin Cherry, the Department's Deputy Secretary of Archives, History, and Parks, is North Carolina's State Historic Preservation Officer. The North Carolina National Register Advisory Committee, a board of professionals and citizens with expertise in history, architectural history, and archaeology, meets three times a year to advise Dr. Cherry on the eligibility of properties for the National Register and the adequacy of nominations.
The National Register nominations for the recently listed properties may be read in their entirety by clicking on the National Register page [u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net] of the State Historic Preservation Office website. For more information on the National Register, including the criteria for listing, see this page [u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net].