{"nrhp_refnum":"79003057","name":"Yellow Sulphur Springs","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"N of Christiansburg on VA 643","address_restricted":false,"city":"Christiansburg","county":"Montgomery County","state":"VA","lat":37.17894393600005,"lon":-80.3968491633351,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1979-09-20","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Black"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A nineteenth-century mineral springs resort complex of about 60 acres near Christiansburg in Montgomery County, Virginia, with a frame hotel, cottage rows, a proprietor's cottage, a gazebo, a carriage house and a bowling alley. The hotel's present form dates from the 1840s.","why_significant":"The nomination argues that the surviving buildings make up one of the earliest and most complete groups of early resort buildings in Virginia, illustrating mid-Victorian leisure and therapeutic pursuits. Additional documentation in 2012 adds significance under Criterion A for Ethnic Heritage (African American), because an African American company ran the resort from 1926 to 1929 during segregation.","narrative":"Yellow Sulphur Springs is a former health resort set among three wooded hollows between Blacksburg and Christiansburg in Montgomery County, Virginia. The roughly 60-acre site keeps a two-story frame hotel whose present form dates from the 1840s, rows of one-story cottages with Greek Revival details, a proprietor's cottage from the 1870s, a gazebo, a carriage house and a rare nineteenth-century bowling alley. A servants' cottage built for the enslaved workers of cottage occupants also survives. The springs were in use by 1810 and drew many visitors, especially after the railroad arrived. A later hotel burned in 1883, and a Shingle Style replacement was torn down in the 1940s. The complex is listed as an unusually complete example of early resort architecture in Virginia. Added documentation records that from 1926 to 1929 a company of African American businessmen from Roanoke ran the resort, which was advertised as a leading mountain resort for Black vacationers during the Jim Crow era.","period_of_significance":"1800-1899 and 1900- at listing; extended through at least 1929 by the 2012 additional documentation","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Greek Revival (hotel and cottage rows); Resort Architecture","criteria":["A"],"status_note":"At listing the property was marked deteriorated, with several buildings lost and the bowling alley missing much of its cladding. The owner then wished to preserve and revitalize it.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:51:58.166578-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/99/6819/41681999/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/79003057.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/79003057/535b9ee583-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/79003057/535b9ee583-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Skye Marthaler","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yellow_Sulphur_Springs.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Skye Marthaler</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:Yellow_Sulphur_Springs.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41681999","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Sulphur_Springs","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14713571"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/montgomery-county/yellow-sulphur-springs-79003057/"}