{"nrhp_refnum":"00000771","name":"Hawkins Avenue Historic District","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Roughly bounded by Hill Ave., First St., Charlotte Ave., and Horner Blvd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Sanford","county":"Lee County","state":"NC","lat":35.48889340850005,"lon":-79.18117919387542,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2000-07-05","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Community Planning and Development","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A fan-shaped residential and industrial historic district of about 84 acres north of downtown Sanford, Lee County, North Carolina, built mainly from the 1880s to 1950 and shaped by converging railroad tracks.","why_significant":"The district is significant under Criteria A for community development and for architecture. It preserves large houses of Sanford's businessmen and professionals alongside modest worker housing tied to nearby textile and furniture mills. It also holds churches, a school, a cotton mill and warehouses, with nationally popular styles from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.","narrative":"Hawkins Avenue Historic District covers roughly 84 acres just north of Sanford's central business district. Its fan-like shape follows the converging Southern Railway and Seaboard Air Line tracks. Of 183 principal buildings, 157 contribute to its character. The district mixes grand houses built for local businessmen, lawyers and industrialists with smaller homes for workers at nearby textile and furniture mills. The earliest house is an 1880s I-house, followed by Queen Anne cottages, a Neoclassical Revival house built in 1922, and many Craftsman bungalows. Three churches in Gothic Revival and Colonial Revival styles date from 1914 to 1928, and the former Sanford High School of 1925 is already individually listed. At the eastern edge stands the former Sanford Cotton Mill, a circa 1900 brick complex with a warehouse and office. Listing recognizes the district for community development and architecture between about 1885 and 1950, when Sanford grew around its railroads and mills.","period_of_significance":"circa 1885-1950","architect_builder":"Matthews, John; Brown, J.W. and Vesper; Thompson, L.M.; Barber, O.Z.; Wilson, Berryman & Kennedy; Chapman-Hunt Company; Cain, Herbert L.; Walker, Robert T.","architectural_style":"Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, Craftsman, Neoclassical Revival, Prairie, Other: I-house","criteria":["A"],"status_note":"Mixed continuing use: single dwellings, businesses, churches and industrial storage; the former cotton mill and school are noted as historic. A Southern Railway spur line is described as abandoned.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:57:54.749239-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/35/7181/47718135/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/00000771.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/00000771/779d684d80-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/00000771/779d684d80-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Jerrye &amp; Roy Klotz, MD","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAWKINS_AVENUE_HISTORIC_DISTRICT;_LEE_COUNTY.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Jerrye &amp;amp; Roy Klotz, MD</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAWKINS_AVENUE_HISTORIC_DISTRICT;_LEE_COUNTY.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47718135","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawkins_Avenue_Historic_District","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q19462240"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/lee-county/hawkins-avenue-historic-district-00000771/"}