Martinsville Bulletin, Inc.
P. O. Box 3711
204 Broad Street
Martinsville, Virginia 24115
276-638-8801
Toll Free: 800-234-6575
|
|
 |
|
|
Alison Stone Blanton, an architectural historian with Hill Studio, presents the findings of the National Society for Historic Preservation’s survey of local sites. (Bulletin photo by Mike Wray) |
Friday, August 7, 2009
By PAUL COLLINS - Bulletin Staff Writer
A survey of historic properties in Henry County and Martinsville has identified four or five properties and two districts that are potentially eligible for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, officials said Thursday night.
According to a draft final report and Anne Beckett, survey manager and an architectural historian for Hill Studio of Roanoke, the properties potentially eligible are: the I.J. Snead House, Ridgeway Elementary School complex, Bassett Depot, Marrs Hill (a former plantation), and the Philpott and (town of) Henry historic districts. Beckett said another possibility might be Greenwood (a home).
Beckett talked about the survey’s findings during a meeting at the Spencer-Penn Centre. More than 30 people attended.
The survey report also recommends that “all threatened properties whose significance is associated with their construction techniques or means of operation should be documented with measured drawings,” and it lists these properties: Bassett Depot, Marrs Hill, Eggleton-Draper-Prillaman House, a gas station on U.S. 58 east of Martinsville, the Paradise Inn in Martinsville and the metal truss Morgan Ford Bridge.
In June 2008, the National Trust for Historic Preservation awarded a contract to Hill Studio to conduct the survey, and 450 historic properties in Henry County and Martinsville were documented. The Virginia Department of Historic Resources also worked on the project, and funding was provided by the historic resources department and The Harvest Foundation.
Rob Nieweg, director of the National Trust’s Southern Field Office, told the audience that Henry County-Martinsville now is one of the most documented places in Virginia. The information could be used by local governments to adopt regulations to protect historic properties and the area’s historic heritage, he said. It also could be used by property owners of to seek their properties’ nominations to state and national registers, which may offer protections for the properties and financial incentives for the property owners.
Alison Stone Blanton, an architectural historian with Hill Studio who is the project manager for the survey, said the completion of the survey is “like a passing of the baton to take the information and do something with it.” For example, she said, many areas are promoting heritage tourism, and the same thing could be done here, such as driving tours based on historic themes or other educational activities.
The draft final report and/or Beckett offered these details about the properties or districts potentially eligible for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places:
• I.J. Snead House, a 1930s Georgian Revival house in excellent condition that is in Oak Level.
• Ridgeway Elementary School complex — “Around 1920 Virginia’s State Board of Education established a School Building Service that provided plans for brick one-story rural consolidated schools with classrooms placed around, or sometimes adjoining, a large assembly hall/study room,” the report says. Ridgeway Elementary School, built in 1929, is an example “of the new State Board of Education consolidated school plan buildings for white students.”
• Bassett Depot — “By the early 1890s what became Norfolk & Western Railway crossed Henry County from north to south to complete the steel rail transportation system begun by the east-to west route of what became known as the Danville & Western division of the Southern Railway completed in the 1880s,” the report says. “With the two railroad lines in place, Henry County entered a new era of industrial production that would lead the economy of the county and Martinsville throughout most of the twentieth century.”
“The ca. (circa, or approximately) 1923 Bassett Depot ... is located in the middle of the commercial downtown of Bassett and was built with rough-cut brick in the Colonial Revival style. The building is vacant and is threatened by proposals for more renovation work detrimental to its historic integrity,” the report says.
Beckett added that she rarely finds train depots anymore.
• Marrs Hill, ca. 1820 former plantation — “After the frontier period, more permanent houses were constructed — mostly of log with stone exterior-end chimneys. The most common floor plan was the rectangular-shaped one-room plan, either one or two stories. A good and rare example of this plan is found at the ... Marrs Hill/Terry Plantation ... in the tobacco rich southeastern section of he county,” the report says.
• Philpott historic district — a largely agricultural community little changed from its heyday from about 1908 to 1950.
• The (town of) Henry historic district, which straddles the Henry County/Franklin County line. In the 1890s, because of the railroad, a planned community was developed with homes and stores, but it never became a boom town as expected.
As for Greenwood, Beckett said, it is an early brick Classical Revival home (the only one found among 450 properties surveyed). It was built in Axton in the early 1800s and was moved to Mulberry Road in Martinsville about 1940.
Beckett provided this additional information about the threatened properties, some of which are discussed above, “whose significance is associated with their construction techniques or means of operation (and) should be documented with measured drawings”:
• Eggleton-Draper-Prillaman House — an 1830s two-story log house in the Dyers Store community that is in good condition.
• A 1920s gas station on U.S. 58 east of Martinsville that is in good condition.
• The Paradise Inn on Fayette Street in Martinsville (which, over time, housed a restaurant and other businesses and was important in the black community). Officials hope to preserve the building and sign.
• The metal truss Morgan Ford Bridge is an 1890s bridge (previously surveyed) in southeast Henry County that is extremely rare and is still in use.
In addition, the survey report recommends that further survey work should be done of other historic resources, including African-American history, such as Hairston Hollow, an area near Bassett where blacks lived and then walked to Bassett, where they worked along with whites; furniture industries; tobacco history; private family cemeteries; Germanic influence in the Dyers Store area and elsewhere in Henry County; threatened schools; threatened rural stores and filling stations; and threatened churches.
Blanton said the all of the information collected in the survey will be kept at the Bassett Historical Center and that the report will be available at several other sites yet to be determined.
John R. Kern, Ph.D., director of the Roanoke Preservation Office of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, gave a report about efforts to nominate a Bassett Historic District to state and national registers, perhaps next year.
|
| |
|
|
.jpg)
.jpg)