Virginia Department of Historic Resources Virginia Department of Historic Resources
For additional information, read the Nomination Form PDF
See link(s) below to view additional documentation.
VLR Listing Date 06/16/1993
NRHP Listing Date 08/12/1993
NRHP Reference Number 93000830; AD93000830
This twenty-five-acre urban historic district encompasses the core of southern Virginia’s leading tobacco and textile manufacturing city. The district has been the commercial and administrative heart of Danville from the 1790s to the present. Spread through the area are retail establishments, banks, hotels, theaters, lodges, and several tobacco factories built from the 1870s through the 1920s. The city’s prosperity and the importance of the activities these buildings housed are reflected in the architectural sophistication and often monumental scale of this urban fabric. The high-rise Masonic Building and the Hotel Danville, both dating from the 1920s, still dominate the skyline. At least ten buildings, the Municipal Building and U. S. Post Office among them, were designed by local architect J. Bryant Heard. Despite gaps, the wide range of styles here lends much visual variety to the streetscapes.
Additional documentation approved by the NPS in 2019 amended the contributing status of the old Register and Bee/Dan Theatre Building in the district.
[NRHP Approved: 9/10/2019]
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Updated: September 18, 2019
