South Benbow Road Historic District
Guilford County, NC
The properties within the South Benbow Road Historic District share historical associations with the advancement of African American Civil Rights in Greensboro. The district includes properties associated with prominent persons, such as the homes of individuals who were important leaders of significant organizations in the Civil Rights Movement, or who offered legal, social, or economic support of the Civil Rights Movement. Specifically, this primarily residential historic district was home to a number of well-known Black leaders, including Civil Rights attorney Kenneth Lee, North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Henry Frye, surgeon and Civil Rights activist Dr. Alvin V. Blount, and prominent architects W. Edward Jenkins and William Streat. Residents of the historic district participated in and supported the Civil Rights Movement in the city, including participating in Freedom of Choice as the first Black students to integrate White schools; participating in sit-ins and marches in downtown Greensboro and at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University; hosting Civil Rights leaders including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jesse Jackson; and supporting student protestors by providing supplies for jailed students and posting bail fees. The district also includes an important strategy center, the home of J. Kenneth Lee, where Black leaders and attorneys frequently gathered to prepare Civil Rights litigation cases.
The district also illustrates discrimination in housing as one of a number of early-to-mid-twentieth century neighborhoods formed in east Greensboro in response to the growth of North Carolina A&T University and Bennett College, the district was developed as a consequence of, and in response to, systemic and de facto segregation in Greensboro. Nevertheless, the district emerged as a middle-class Black neighborhood with close associations to the nearby, historically Black, North Carolina Agricultural & Technical University and Bennett College.
The district was funded by a Civil Rights grant from the National Park Services and was co-written with Firefly Preservation Consulting. It was listed in the National Register in 2024.
The 1986 Mount Pleasant Historic District nomination outlined the significance of the town as a textile village with a small commercial core, its modest size primarily due to its lack of direct railroad connections. The district includes a collection of residential, religious, commercial, and industrial buildings representing nearly every major style popular during the period of significance, 1840 to 1975, including the Greek Revival, Italianate, Gothic Revival, Queen Anne, Romanesque, Colonial Revival, and Craftsman styles; the Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, Minimal Traditional, Ranch, and Modernist styles; as well as vernacular commercial and industrial architecture.
The Additional Documentation extends the historic context through c.1976 to encompass the continued residential, commercial, and industrial growth within Mount Pleasant through the mid-twentieth century. New businesses and commercial building represent the continued growth of the commercial core with new retail establishments, a theater, a bank, grocery stores, and a hardware company to serve the growing population of Mount Pleasant and the surrounding rural areas. The Miller Lumber Company and the Tuscarora Cotton Mill, two of the town’s main industries throughout its history, experienced growth through the mid-twentieth century with new facilities constructed in the historic district in the early 1970s.
The district was co-written with Firefly Preservation Consulting. It was listed in the National Register in 2024.
Mount Pleasant Historic District Additional Documentation,
Cabarrus County, NC
Downtown Greensboro Historic District
Additional Documentation,Boundary Increase, Boundary Decrease
Guilford County, NC
The 1982 Downtown Greensboro Historic District focused on the historic commercial core of the city, associated with the city’s establishment and its role as the governmental, social, and commercial center of Guilford County. It included stores, banks, and professional offices constructed from the late-nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries. This Boundary Increase represents the growth and expansion of the commercial core and includes early and mid-twentieth century buildings housed stores, hotels, offices, banks, public buildings, and other services for city residents. The 1973 Governmental Center serves as the center of government for Guilford County, which is one of Greensboro’s primary employers.
The Additional Documentation outlines the local, statewide, and national significance of the district for Civil Rights. The sit-ins at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, staged by students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University starting on February 1, 1960, have been widely viewed by both scholars and contemporaries as a turning point in the Civil Rights movement.
The district was co-written with Firefly Preservation Consulting. It was listed in the National Register in 2023.
The 1985 Downtown Sanford Historic District encompassed the core of the central business district with the oldest and most architecturally significant commercial, industrial, and governmental resources. The Boundary Increase represents the continued commercial and industrial development of Sanford through the mid-twentieth century.
Sanford was established in 1874, with a commercial core developing adjacent to the Raleigh and Augusta Air Line Railroad. It features examples of dominant architectural styles of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including Queen Anne, Gothic Revival, Art Deco, Craftsman, Tudor Revival, Colonial Revival, and Commercial Style.
The Downtown Sanford Historic District is also significant for African American Ethnic Heritage and Civil Rights as the location of Civil Rights demonstrations during the 1960s, including a series of planned anti-segregation marches, sit-ins, and demonstrations that took place in 1963. Finally, Sanford served as an important regional manufacturing center and industrial activities contributed substantially to the growth of downtown Sanford.
The district was co-written with Firefly Preservation Consulting. It was listed in the National Register in 2021.
Downtown Sanford Historic District Additional Documentation,
Boundary Increase, Boundary Decrease
Lee County, NC
Enfield Historic District
Halifax County, NC
The Enfield Historic District is significant for Commerce as an important trading center for the southern portion of Halifax County. Townspeople and local farmers came to Enfield’s commercial district for basic needs including general stores, groceries, the post office, and banks; professional services including physicians and lawyers; and civic activities including local organizations and entertainment venues.
The Enfield Historic District is also significant for Industry as an important processing center for farmers in the region that grew primarily cotton, corn, tobacco, and peanuts during the period of significance. Enfield’s industrial center included cotton gins, gristmills, tobacco warehouses and a stemmery, and peanut sorting and cleaning facilities.
The Enfield Historic District includes representative examples of commercial, residential, institutional, and industrial architecture constructed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The district was co-written with Firefly Preservation Consulting. It was listed in the National Register in 2021.
The 1989 Queen-Gordon Streets Historic District represents the commercial growth of Kinston at the turn of the twentieth century and includes impressive buildings that housed hardware, grocery, drug, and department stores, professional offices, banks, theaters, and post offices. The 1994 Kinston Commercial Historic District serves as a Boundary Increase for the Queen-Gordon Streets Historic District and represents Kinston’s growth in the 1920s and 1930s. It includes additional clothing, grocery, drug, and department stores, restaurants, and automobile dealerships and service stations.
The Kinston Commercial Historic District Boundary Increase represents the continued growth of the city through the mid-twentieth century, as well as the operation of city and county government. The district is significant as an important center for the tobacco industry in Lenoir and the surrounding counties during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The success of tobacco agriculture brought a boom of growth to Kinston around the turn of the twentieth century and helped stabilize the Kinston economy during both World Wars and the Great Depression. Architectural styles prominent in the Boundary Increase include Classical Revival, Romanesque Revival, Art Deco, Moderne, and Modernist.
The district was co-written with Firefly Preservation Consulting. It was listed in the National Register in 2021.
Kinston Commercial Historic District Additional Documentation, Boundary Increase, Boundary Decrease
Lenoir County, NC
Elizabeth City Industrial Historic District
Pasquotank County, NC
The Elizabeth City Industrial Historic District is significant as the only remaining concentration of early- to mid-twentieth-century industrial buildings in the city. Although Elizabeth City was once a center of industry for northeastern North Carolina, little remains of its industrial landscape. As shipbuilding waned in the city, many of the industries adjacent to the Pasquotank River were demolished for public parks, pleasure boat access, and riverfront housing. Although a small number of industrial buildings from the early twentieth century remain extant throughout Elizabeth City, the historic district represents the only remaining grouping of industrial buildings from this period, and the only remaining industrial district that retains its early- to mid-twentieth-century industrial character.
The district was co-written with Firefly Preservation Consulting. It was listed in the National Register in 2021.
The Winton Historic District is significant as the county seat of Hertford County since 1766. The 1956 Hertford County Courthouse is the county’s fourth. Together with the
courthouse, the 1950-1951 Hertford County Office Building and the 1950-1951 Hertford County HealthDepartment remain the center of government for the county, which is one of Winton’s primary employers.
The District is also significant for Native American Ethnic Heritage, African American Ethnic Heritage, and Education. The southern portion of the district includes a historically significant school for students of color, including African American, Native American, and multiracial children. The C.S. Brown School opened in 1886 as Chowan Academy, a boarding school for students of color and the only high school for students of color in Hertford County until 1937. Adjacent to the school is the historically African American First Baptist Church of Winton, founded in 1895, and Manley Field, the former Chowan Bees baseball stadium, which provided popular recreational opportunities for African Americans from the late 1930s until the early 1950s. These institutions formed the foundation of the African American residential community that developed in this area of Winton, near the southern end of the district.
The district was co-written with Firefly Preservation Consulting. It was listed in the National Register in 2020.
Winton Historic District
Hertford County, NC
Oxford Historic District
Additional Documentation, Boundary Increase, Boundary Decrease
Granville County, NC
The 1988 Oxford Historic District encompassed the core of the central business district and the adjacent residential development to the northwest and southeast, including the largest, oldest, and most architecturally significant residential resources. The district includes commercial buildings including stores, a post office, and banks constructed from the late nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries as well as mid-twentieth-century commercial buildings that contained additional services for area residents, including offices, restaurants, and retail stores.
The Oxford Historic District is also significant for African American Ethnic Heritage due to the effects of segregation on African American settlement patterns in the city, much of which was developed during the racially segregated early-twentieth century. Additionally, Oxford’s African American population participated in Civil Rights activities in the city from the 1950s through the 1970s, taking an active role to seek equality in public offices, education, employment, and other aspects of daily life.
The district includes representative examples of commercial, residential, and industrial architecture constructed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The district was co-written with Firefly Preservation Consulting. It was listed in the National Register in 2020.
The West Chapel Hill Historic District (Boundary Increase) includes six separate areas that expand the original district, listed in the National Register in 1998. Like the original district, the increase areas are significant for Community Planning and Development, representative of the town’s continued growth and development in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the West Chapel Hill neighborhood, as well as the growth of the University of North Carolina, which is located west of the neighborhood. It reflects the national popularity of the City Beautiful Movement and Neighborhood Movement in the first half of the twentieth century.
The West Chapel Hill Historic District Boundary Increase includes residential resources dating from c. 1915-1971 and features examples of the Greek Revival, Queen Anne, Gothic Revival, Craftsman, Colonial Revival, and Ranch styles. While the architecture of the Boundary Increase is generally more modest than that of the original West Chapel Hill Historic District, the areas share much of the original district’s history and collectively the district and boundary increase more accurately reflect the full scope of West Chapel Hill’s development.
The district was co-written with Firefly Preservation Consulting. It was listed in the National Register in May 2019.
West Chapel Hill
Historic District Boundary Increase
Orange County, NC
Located adjacent to North Carolina Central University in southeast central Durham, the College Heights neighborhood was established in the 1920s, but experienced significant growth from the 1930s through the 1960s. With its proximity to NCCU as well as to the Whitted School and Hillside High School, both built in the 1920s, the neighborhood was home to a significant number of educators. Executives in Durham's most significant African American-owned businesses, including NC Mutual Life Insurance Co. and Farmers and Mechanics Bank, also made their homes in the College Heights neighborhood, as did the brick masons, plasterers, painters, and builders who literally built not only the College Heights neighborhood, but much of Durham.
The College Heights Historic District illustrates the prominence of the African American middle class in Durham in the twentieth century and is significant for its association with the African American community in Durham. It is also significant for its architectural and neighborhood design as an intact early- to mid-twentieth century middle-class neighborhood.
The nomination was funded by an Underrepresented Community Grant to the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office from the National Park Service and was co-written with Firefly Preservation Consulting. It was listed in the National Register in January 2019.
