Hendersonville’s Oakdale Cemetery named to Register of Historic Places

Oakdale Cemetery in Hendersonville.

Raleigh – Ten individual properties and districts across the state, included Oakdale Cemetery in Hendersonville, have been added to the National Register of Historic Places, Gov. Pat McCrory and the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources are pleased to announce.

“One of the most enjoyable and fulfilling roles of being governor has been getting to know our state’s history through and through,” Governor McCrory said. “Traveling throughout the state has given me a much deeper appreciation for the wealth of historic places we have. I’m thankful the National Register sees the immeasurable cultural value of North Carolina.”

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, archeology and culture.

“The National Register is a vital tool in the preservation of our state’s historic resources. I am proud that North Carolina is a leader in the nation’s historic preservation movement,” said Susan Kluttz, secretary of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.

It is estimated that North Carolina has approximately 73,300 National Register properties.

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, 2014, 3,000 rehabilitation projects with total estimated expenditures of $1.7 billion have been completed.

The following properties were reviewed by the North Carolina National Register Advisory Committee and were subsequently approved by the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Officer and forwarded to the Keeper of the National Register:

Oakdale Cemetery, Hendersonville, Henderson County, listed 2/5/14
Established in 1885, the 22-acre Oakdale Cemetery, which includes memorials to veterans of both World Wars as well as a paupers’ cemetery, is locally significant in the areas of social history and African-American heritage for its representation of Hendersonville’s diverse population. The cemetery is also significant for its collection of funerary art. Expanded in 1913, 1943, 1938 and 1950, the cemetery has a period of significance from 1885 to 1960.

Old South Mebane Historic District Boundary Increase, Mebane, Alamance County, listed 12/16/13
The Old South Mebane Historic District Boundary Increase includes houses in three small clusters and one long linear section adjacent to the Old South Mebane Historic District (NR 2011) in the city of Mebane. The boundary increase is similar to the original historic district in boasting a wide array of domestic architectural styles from the early 20th century through the early 1960s, including the Colonial Revival, Craftsman, Period Cottage, Minimal Traditional, Ranch and Modernist styles.

Fort Caswell Historic District, Oak Island, Brunswick County, listed 12/31/13
Located at the southeast tip of Oak Island, Fort Caswell functioned as a guardian of blockade runners during the Civil War and had a role in the monitoring of German submarines off the East Coast of the United States during World War II. The 91 buildings and structures in the Fort Caswell Historic District reflect the installation’s transformation from a military outpost, begun in the early 19th century, to a religious retreat center and camp established in the mid-20th century.

Durham Hosiery Mills Dye House, Durham, Durham County, listed 1/22/14
The Durham Hosiery Mills Dye House is historically important as an integral part of the Durham Hosiery Mills Corporation’s operations headquartered in Durham. Built in 1920-1921, the building served as a dyeing facility for mills that were part of the largest cotton hosiery manufacturing company in the United States by the early 1920s. The company owned 15 mills by that time and it is likely that this dye house served two nearby mills without dye houses-in Carrboro and in Mebane-in addition to the company’s mill in Durham.

Hillside Park High School, Durham, Durham County, listed 12/30/13
Hillside Park High School (most recently known as J. A. Whitted Junior High School), a Classical Revival-style, brick school that dates to 1922, was the first high school for African-Americans in Durham. Located in the historic African-American community of Hayti, the school chronicles the advancement of African-American education in Durham during the early and mid-20th century in the context of a segregated school system. Built in 1954-1955, a three-story brick, T-shaped addition with a one-story-on-basement gymnasium rear wing connects to the east end of the original school. This addition resulted from the school’s 1950 conversion to an elementary school as well as the Durham Board of Education’s efforts to satisfy a lawsuit that successfully challenged Durham’s inequities in funding African-American schools at a level similar to white schools.

Louise Cotton Mill, Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, listed 12/31/13
Louise Cotton Mill is architecturally significant in Charlotte as an intact representative example of turn-of-the-20th-century heavy-timber mill construction. Built in 1897 and 1901, the distinctive U-shaped textile mill counts among Charlotte’s oldest industrial buildings. The 1897 western wing is a full two-story brick building with an intact monitor roof running the full-length of the wing. The 1901 addition comprise two sections, a two-story connecting wing and a long one-story weaving room with a tall basement.

James D. and Frances Sprunt Cottage, Wrightsville Beach, New Hanover County, listed 12/18/13
The 1937 James D. and Frances Sprunt Cottage exemplifies stylish beach cottages constructed in Wrightsville Beach during the early 20th century by well-to-do residents of neighboring Wilmington. The elevated two-story, three-bay frame cottage is notable for its retention of characteristics associated with the architecture and coastal way of life of Wrightsville Beach during the first half of the 20th century. These features include cedar-shingle sheathing and a main-level porch with an upper deck on the east elevation and a double-tier wraparound porch on the west and south elevations providing spacious areas to enjoy the cooling breezes off the ocean and the sound.

Valentine-Wilder House, Spring Hope vicinity, Nash County, listed 12/31/13
The Valentine-Wilder House, located just outside the town of Spring Hope, is one of a small group of early 20th-century Rustic Revival-style log houses built in the coastal plain of eastern North Carolina. The house was built c. 1925 by Itimous Thaddeus Valentine, who practiced law in Nash County, served in WWI and WWII, and was an associate justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. The log house was constructed using corner notching of the logs in the saddle-notch configuration, the most widely used system from this time period. Notable interior features include a staircase with a balustrade composed of slender, cypress logs as balusters, a pine log handrail, and newel posts of more substantial cedar trunks.

Eureka Manufacturing Company Cotton Mill, Lincolnton, Lincoln County, listed 12/18/13
Eureka Manufacturing Company Cotton Mill in Lincolnton is historically important for its contributions to the industrial history of the Lincoln County seat. The mill property stands close to downtown and includes two buildings — a two-story brick office/dye house built sometime between 1902 and 1906, and a large two-story brick mill building erected shortly thereafter. In 1910, a visitor reported that the company made coarse yarns from floor sweepings at other mills. The mill was in yarn production between ca. 1910 and 1937 and again from 1949 to 1966.

Flat Top Estate, Blowing Rock vicinity, Watauga County, listed 12/24/13
Flat Top Estate, the western mountain home of Greensboro textile magnate Moses Cone, reflects the wealth and social status Cone gained from his extensive textile enterprises. With his brother Ceasar Cone, Moses Cone was an innovator who introduced denim manufacturing to the South and transformed numerous aspects of the textile industry in the late 19th century. The estate is also of statewide importance in the area of social history as a private family retreat encompassing thousands of acres featuring a designed network of carriage roads. Flat Top Manor, the impressive 1899-1900 Colonial Revival-style house that anchors the estate, is among North Carolina’s most distinctive and academic examples of the period architectural style.

About the National Register of Historic Places

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 Cultural Resources. Kevin Cherry, the Department’s deputy secretary of archives and history, 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 archeology, 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 a link on the National Register page of the State Historic Preservation Office website. For more information on the National Register, including the criteria for listing, see this page.

About the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources

The N.C. Department of Cultural Resources (NCDCR) is the state agency with a vision to be the leader in using the state’s cultural resources to build the social, cultural and economic future of North Carolina. Led by Secretary Susan Kluttz, NCDCR’s mission is to enrich lives and communities by creating opportunities to experience excellence in the arts, history and libraries in North Carolina that will spark creativity, stimulate learning, preserve the state’s history and promote the creative economy. NCDCR was the first state organization in the nation to include all agencies for arts and culture under one umbrella.

Through arts efforts led by the N.C. Arts Council, the N.C. Symphony and the N.C. Museum of Art, NCDCR offers the opportunity for enriching arts education for young and old alike and spurring the economic stimulus engine for our state’s communities.

NCDCR’s Divisions of Archives and Records, Historical Resources, State Historic Sites and State History Museums preserve, document and interpret North Carolina’s rich cultural heritage to offer experiences of learning and reflection. NCDCR’s State Library of North Carolina is the principal library of state government and builds the capacity of all libraries in our state to develop and to offer access to educational resources through traditional and online collections including genealogy and resources for the blind and physically handicapped.

NCDCR annually serves more than 19 million people through its 27 historic sites, seven history museums, two art museums, the nation’s first state-supported Symphony Orchestra, the State Library, the N.C. Arts Council and the State Archives. NCDCR champions our state’s creative industry that accounts for more than 300,000 jobs and generates nearly $18.5 billion in revenues. For more information, please call (919) 807-7300 or visit http://www.ncdcr.gov/.