The state has added 15 new places to the Virginia Landmarks Register, including the Bacova district in Bath County, the Presbyterian Cemetery in Lynchburg, the former Dublin High School in Pulaski County and what is described as “a sprawling historic district in Halifax County encompassing resources that represent the quintessential pastoral farming community in Southside Virginia.”
The Board of Historic Resources made the selections at its recent quarterly meeting. The listings set no restrictions on the property but are intended to recognize “places of historic, architectural, archaeological, and cultural significance.”
Here’s the list of locations added, with the descriptions from the Board of Historic Resources:
Accomack County
Located near the Town of Accomac in Accomack County, Mary Nottingham Smith High School was built in 1953 to provide education for Black students during racial segregation in Virginia’s public schools. Named after a renowned Black educator of the Eastern Shore, the school was required to implement similar educational amenities as White schools to prevent integration during its years of operation. The school is listed in the Virginia Landmarks Register under the African American Schools in Virginia Multiple Property Document.
Designated as a Virginia Landmark under the African American Churches in Virginia Multiple Property Document, Oakland Baptist Church in the City of Alexandria was established in a historic Black community known as “The Fort” in the late 19th century by African Americans, including those who were formerly enslaved. The church anchored the Black community after the end of the Civil War by fostering community cohesion, providing aid during Jim Crow, and promoting education and civil rights. The current church was built in 1940 after a fire in the 1930s destroyed the original 1893 building.
Bath County
The 85-acre Bacova Historic District located in Bath County in Virginia’s Alleghany Highlands region is a company town built beginning in 1920 by the Tide Water Hardwood Corporation, a subsidiary of the Tide Water Oil Company, after it moved to the area to access the region’s vast forests, a much-coveted resource for building construction and crafting wood barrels to store a variety of products, such as oil. In 1959, the town was purchased by Malcolm Hirsh, an industrialist who founded the Bacova Guild, Ltd., a company that made fiberglass products. Still standing in the district are intact company housing that make up the district’s historic core, the brick core of the Tide Water Hardwood sawmill, a post office, a former church, and a former commissary.
Prince Edward County
Built in 1915, Green Bay School in Prince Edward County served as a consolidated high school and elementary school for White students during Jim Crow and as a community hub for the county’s Leigh Magisterial District for 30 years. The building features Colonial and Classical Revival styles, which were popular for school buildings at the time. The school closed in 1945, after the high school department moved out of the building.
Frederick County
Built between 1841 and 1845 in northwestern Frederick County for David Little Clayton and his wife, Jane Cooper Peebles, the David L. Clayton House exemplifies a mid-19th-century Greek Revival-style manor in the Commonwealth’s lower Shenandoah Valley region. The house also stands as one of the earliest public schools in the county. After the 1869 ratification of the Underwood Constitution, which called for the establishment of public schools in Virginia, the Clayton family converted the third floor of their home into classrooms that were used to provide free education for local families.\
Halifax County
The Banister River Navigation Improvements Historic District in Halifax County contains a 23-mile segment of the Banister River from the falls at Meadville to its confluence with the Dan River east of the Town of South Boston. The district includes nine wing dams, three mill dams, a mill, one canal, piers and abutments for five bridges, and a railroad spur line, among other navigational improvements built to transport people and products along the Banister River before railroads. These improvements to navigation, along with the construction of McDaniel’s Mill and the founding of Meadville, led to the growth of the area in the 19th century.
Located in Halifax County, the Calvary Rural Historic District encompasses 22 individual properties across 844 acres of pastoral agricultural landscape within Virginia’s southern Piedmont. The district’s land is historically associated with tobacco cultivation as the principal cash crop and has been largely owned and farmed by the local Williamson family since the 18th century. The resources of the district, including houses, tobacco barns, a church, and cemeteries, embody the characteristics of a rural farming community in Southside Virginia.
Highland County
Built in circa 1883, the Lucius and Mary Stephenson House is a leading example of Queen Anne-style architecture in the Highland County Town of Monterey. Originally the home of businessman Lucius H. Stephenson and his wife, Mary L. C. Stephenson, the dwelling also operated as the Maple Hill Tourist Home in the 1930s through the 1940s.
Lee County
Gibson Farm is a rare surviving residence from the early antebellum period in rural Lee County. In addition to the farmhouse, which was built circa 1830 near the Cumberland Gap, along the Wilderness Road western migration route, the property comprises a network of agricultural resources constructed over the course of a century, including a granary, meat house, and barns, as well as the Gibson family cemetery. Completed in the late 19th century, the Louisville & Nashville Railroad runs behind the farmhouse and undoubtedly brought changes to the farm.
Loudoun County
Located in the rural crossroads community of Watson in Loudoun County, First Baptist Church Watson is listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register under the African American Churches in Virginia Multiple Property Document. The property includes the current church building, constructed in 1957, and a cemetery, where the year of the earliest known burial is 1909. The church began as a congregation in 1896 and served as a public gathering place for the area’s African Americans to advocate for educational advancement and civil rights.
Lynchburg
Presbyterian Cemetery in the City of Lynchburg is representative of a 19th- and early-20th-century cemetery influenced by the Rural Cemetery Movement in Virginia, which emphasized that cemeteries should be landscaped, parklike settings that incorporate natural topography, curvilinear circulation, and designed burial areas as opposed to being strictly utilitarian spaces. Presbyterian Cemetery’s evolution from the time of its establishment in 1823 to the early 20th century demonstrates the community’s shift in perspective toward death and commemoration, with many notable examples of funerary art, memorial sculptures, and architecture.
Pulaski County
Dublin High School in the Pulaski County Town of Dublin exemplifies the Virginia Department of Education’s initiative to provide students with spacious, well-ventilated, and amply lit instructional spaces. Built in 1953 and expanded in 1957, the school represents the Pulaski County Board of Education’s 1950s campaign to alleviate overcrowding in schools and facilitate the implementation of progressive educational reforms. The school building, designed by prolific Roanoke-based firm Smithey and Boynton, serves as an excellent local example of International Style architecture with Modernist features.
Richmond
The 19th-century plantation in the City of Richmond known as Brookbury includes a Federal-style main house and two domestic outbuildings that were once slave quarters. The property’s historical significance begins around 1811, when the main house was constructed, and extends to the first quarter of the 20th century, when modifications exemplifying architectural trends of the period were made to the house. Brookbury’s extant slave quarters provide an excellent opportunity to learn about the lives of the enslaved who once lived and worked on the property.
The Virginia Home was built in 1930 in the Byrd Park neighborhood of the City of Richmond to house and care for Virginians with permanent disabilities. Modifications to the Art Deco-style building in the decades following construction, particularly the addition in 1970, have increased the facility’s size, allowing it to provide more aid to residents, accept more applicants, and adapt to changing medical trends.
Rockingham County
Established in 1825, the Mount Crawford Historic District in the Rockingham County Town of Mount Crawford developed along U.S. Route 11 (formerly known as Valley Pike). The district’s proximity to the North River contributed to its growth as a turnpike town that served as an industrial and commercial hub to the surrounding rural area in the 19th and 20th centuries, including in the decades marked by the rise of automobiles. The architecture of the district’s residential, commercial, and ecclesiastical buildings reflects the characteristics of a turnpike town located in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.
