{"nrhp_refnum":"74002151","name":"Fox, John, Jr., House","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"117 Shawnee Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Big Stone Gap","county":"Wise County","state":"VA","lat":36.865908526000055,"lon":-82.77824148799994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1974-06-07","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Literature"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A rambling two-story, twenty-room frame house at 117 Shawnee Avenue in Big Stone Gap, Wise County, Virginia, built around a cottage core of 1890 and enlarged over the next twenty years.","why_significant":"It was the home of Virginia author John Fox, Jr., from 1890 until his death in 1919. Most of his productive years were spent there, and the surrounding mountain regions inspired his popular novels, including The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come and The Trail of the Lonesome Pine. The Fox family also made the house a center of art, culture and entertainment.","narrative":"This rambling shingle-style house at 117 Shawnee Avenue in Big Stone Gap began in 1890 as a four-room cottage for the Fox brothers, who were overseeing mining investments in the area. Over about twenty years it grew into a two-story, twenty-room house as more of the family moved in, with another enlargement around 1908 when John Fox, Jr., brought his wife, singer Fritzi Scheff, to town. The frame building rests on stone foundations, is covered in dark brown wood shingles, and has a series of irregular gable roofs, porches and scattered brick chimneys. Fox lived here from 1890 until his death in 1919 and wrote his best-selling novels, The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come and The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, drawing on the mountain regions of Kentucky and Southwest Virginia. The house stayed in the family until 1971 and is now a museum open to the public.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Shingle style (described as a rambling shingle-style house)","criteria":[],"status_note":"Owned by the Lonesome Pine Arts and Crafts Association and open to the public as a museum; condition listed as good and altered.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:51:57.177307-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/0/6842/41684200/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/74002151.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/74002151/dd8bb5ad74-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/74002151/dd8bb5ad74-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Betcantrell","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Fox_Jr._Home.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Betcantrell</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:John_Fox_Jr._Home.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41684200","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fox_Jr._House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q15229660"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/wise-county/fox-john-jr-house-74002151/"}