Virginia Department of Historic Resources Virginia Department of Historic Resources
For additional information, read the Nomination Form PDF
VLR Listing Date 12/13/2018
NRHP Listing Date 04/02/2019
NRHP Reference Number SG100003604
The Culpeper Municipal Electric Plant and Waterworks, located on the west end of Spring Street southwest of Culpeper’s downtown, is significant at the statewide level as Virginia’s first municipal electric facility funded with federal Public Works Administration financing. The facility is also significant for its association with important trends in municipal electric generation and distribution, as well as drinking water treatment, across rural Virginia during the early- to mid-twentieth-century. The complex, designed by Wiley & Wilson, a prominent architectural and engineering firm based in Lynchburg, is also locally significant as an excellent example of an early- to mid-twentieth-century Moderne-style industrial plant with Art Deco influences. The assemblage retains high levels of architectural and historic integrity from its period of significance, which ranges from the construction of the Electric Plant in 1933 to the completion of the final addition to the Waterworks building in 1966.
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: June 6, 2022
