Highland Springs added to Virginia Landmarks Register

Highland Springs was among 11 historic sites added to the Virginia Landmarks Register (VLR) by the Department of Historic Resources (DHR) last week.

Highland Springs arose as an electric streetcar suburb beginning in 1890 when Edmund S. Read, of Massachusetts, purchased land to create a community of modest, affordable houses near Richmond. Highland Springs featured a simple grid plan with very small lots of one- and one-and-a-half story residences for white working class families, which distinguished it from Richmond’s other contemporary street car suburbs intended for more upscale residents.

An exception to the district’s array of modest dwellings are houses on larger lots close to Read’s residence or on lots adjacent to Nine Mile Road, residences that display sophisticated architectural styles such as Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, and Craftsman. Non-residential buildings in the district include institutional and commercial structures, churches, schools, an art deco theater (the Henrico Theatre), a masonic hall and a post office, all of which continue to serve the Highland Springs community.

The mid-20th century saw the period of greatest growth in the district, as reflected in the large numbers of existing dwellings from that era built in minimal traditional or ranch styles. A variety of other modest vernacular and definable architectural styles, dating from the 1890s to the 1960s, can also be seen in the district. The community’s name derives from its elevated site and several abundant springs scattered throughout the area, a few of which serve as the focal point of small parks in Highland Springs.

Other sites approved for listing in the Virginia Landmarks Register last week during the quarterly meeting of DHR’s State Review Board and Virginia Board of Historic Resources include:

• The North Belmont Neigborhood Historic District in Charlottesville, important for its association with late-19th century suburban development adjacent to Charlottesville, situated on 75 acres located in the southeastern part of the city;

• Kenwyn (currently known as Wynandra), built in 1929 in Richmond, an exceptional early 20th century Georgian Revival-style house designed by architect Carl Max Lindner Sr. that was enhanced with garden designs by landscape architect Charles Freeman Gillette;

• The Lee Medical Building, which faces the Robert E. Lee Monument on Richmond’s celebrated Monument Avenue, the most prominent design of prolific local architect W. Harrison Pringle and the best-known project of local builder and developer Franklin A. Trice;

• The Little River UDC Jefferson Davis Highway Marker, located five miles north of Ashland in Hanover County along U.S. Route 1, composed of gray granite and just over four-feet in height and 29 inches wide; it was dedicated in 1936;

• Bethlehem Primitive Baptist Church and its cemetery, founded in 1870 in Stafford County by formerly enslaved African Americans under the auspices of a benevolent organization working with the Freedmen’s Bureau;

• Oakland Baptist Church Cemetery, founded around 1897 as an unconstructed burial ground in the City of Alexandria;

• Fairfax County’s Original Mount Vernon High School, completed in 1939 under the federally funded Public Works Administration;

• El Bethel Methodist Church in Amherst County, erected in 1930;

• The Gilliam-Irving Farm, established around 1817 for James Gilliam, Jr. (1776-1841) in Appomattox County;

• Emmanuel Baptist Church, constructed around 1907 in central Amherst County on the outskirts of the former milling community of Sandidges.