{"nrhp_refnum":"80004460","name":"Blunt, Ainsworth E., House","other_names":["Blunt House"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"506 S. Thornton Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Dalton","county":"Whitfield County","state":"GA","lat":34.76665980000007,"lon":-84.97183875199994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1980-07-09","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Military","Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story house at 506 South Thornton Avenue in Dalton, Whitfield County, Georgia, built in 1848 in the Federal style with late-nineteenth-century Victorian additions at the rear. The builder is not known.","why_significant":"The house is presented as an excellent local example of the Federal style, showing how slowly architectural styles reached remote parts of Georgia, and it is one of the oldest houses in Dalton. During the Civil War it served as a temporary Confederate headquarters and a Union field hospital. Its builder, Ainsworth E. Blunt, was a pioneer settler, Dalton's first postmaster and a mayor, and helped found the First Presbyterian Church.","narrative":"Built in 1848 in Dalton, Georgia, this two-story house is a Federal-style home with a symmetrical front, a central stair hall, and thin columns on a two-story portico. Interior end chimneys are unusual for northwest Georgia, and the house shows how slowly architectural fashions reached the region while Greek Revival was spreading elsewhere in the state. Late in the nineteenth century, Lillie Blunt Kirby added a Victorian rear wing with dark woodwork to house her family of six. Ainsworth E. Blunt, a New Hampshire native who had worked at the Cherokee mission at Brainerd, Tennessee, built the house. He became Dalton's first postmaster and a mayor, and he helped found the First Presbyterian Church. In 1864 Confederate officers, including General Joseph Johnston, used the house as a temporary headquarters, and Union troops later used it as a field hospital. It stayed in the family until 1978, when it passed to the Whitfield-Murray Historical Society. The original four-acre lot is now under one acre.","period_of_significance":"1800-1899","architect_builder":"Unknown","architectural_style":"Federal, with Victorian additions and some Greek Revival detailing","criteria":[],"status_note":"Listed as unoccupied and vacant at the time of nomination. The house was willed to the Whitfield-Murray Historical Society for preservation, and the lot has shrunk from four acres to under one acre.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:41.342594-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_GA/80004460.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80004460/bccec22527-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80004460/bccec22527-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"GamblinMonkey","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Whitfield_Country_Ainsworth_E_Blunt_House.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">GamblinMonkey</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Whitfield_Country_Ainsworth_E_Blunt_House.jpg"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"92000669","name":"Thornton Avenue-Murray Hill Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/georgia/thornton-avenue-murray-hill-historic-district-92000669/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/93209913","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q406124"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/georgia/whitfield-county/blunt-ainsworth-e-house-80004460/"}