{"nrhp_refnum":"01001028","name":"Cooper, A.S., Farm","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Cranberry Springs Rd., approx. 0.2 mi. SE of jct. with Todd RR Grade Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Brownwood","county":"Ashe County","state":"NC","lat":36.27599178150004,"lon":-81.54873175888837,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2001-09-24","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Agriculture","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A farm district on both sides of Cranberry Springs Road in Brownwood, straddling Ashe and Watauga counties, North Carolina, with buildings from about 1880 to the present. It includes three building clusters, a family cemetery and the surrounding farm landscape.","why_significant":"The farm is presented as an excellent example of a Blue Ridge mountain farmstead that shifted from late-nineteenth-century subsistence agriculture to dairy production by the 1940s. Its buildings record these changes, including a c.1890 late Victorian I-house, a 1946 milking parlor and 1950s poultry houses. The Cooper family's continued use of the land as a dairy farm is also noted as significant.","narrative":"Set in a narrow valley of the Blue Ridge Mountains near the South Fork of the New River, this farm straddles the Ashe and Watauga county line. Buildings are grouped in three clusters: the homeplace built around 1890 by A.S. Cooper, Sr., a barn complex, and a group around the c.1880 Phillips house. The centerpiece is a two-story late Victorian I-house with a wrap-around porch, stained glass and sunburst corner blocks. Nearby are a spring house, granary, barns, concrete silos, a 1946 milking parlor, two 1955 chicken houses and a family cemetery of eighteen graves dating from about 1860. The fields, pastures, woodlands and springs follow the slope of the land. The farm was listed because it shows how a Blue Ridge farm moved from subsistence crops and livestock to dairy and poultry production in the mid-twentieth century, and because its buildings represent local architecture from about 1880 to 1946. The Cooper family has continued to farm it.","period_of_significance":"c. 1880-1951 (agriculture); c. 1890-1946 (architecture)","architect_builder":"A.S. Cooper, Sr. (house and adjacent outbuildings believed built by him)","architectural_style":"I-House (late Victorian)","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Still used as a working dairy farm and single dwelling; the Elzy and Sarah Phillips House is noncontributing because additions and vinyl siding have compromised its integrity.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:57:54.419902-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/36/7189/47718936/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/01001028.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/01001028/e2e8b4b50a-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/01001028/e2e8b4b50a-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"rossograph","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A.S._Cooper_Farm.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">rossograph</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A.S._Cooper_Farm.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47718936","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.S._Cooper_Farm","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q17509267"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/ashe-county/cooper-a-s-farm-01001028/"}