{"nrhp_refnum":"83000238","name":"Pelham Commercial Historic District","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Roughly bounded by RR tracks, Church, Blythe, Jackson Sts. & Hand Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Pelham","county":"Mitchell County","state":"GA","lat":31.126360873000067,"lon":-84.15307947238163,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1983-03-24","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce","Transportation","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A downtown commercial and civic historic district of about 13 acres in Pelham, Mitchell County, Georgia, made up mostly of one- and two-story masonry buildings from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century.","why_significant":"The district is significant for community planning and development, commerce and architecture. It represents a small railroad-era commercial center of the Wiregrass region, shaped largely by developer Judson L. Hand. It also holds a fine collection of period commercial and civic buildings, including the Hand Trading Company and the Carnegie Library.","narrative":"Downtown Pelham, in Mitchell County, Georgia, contains a compact district of about 13 acres filled with one- and two-story brick commercial buildings dating from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Storefronts share party walls along a slightly irregular grid of streets, and details include cast-iron columns, plate glass, terra cotta and corbeled cornices. Landmarks include the four-story Hand Trading Company, built in 1916 by the Atlanta firm Walker and Chase, the Neoclassical Carnegie Library of 1908, two railroad depots, brick warehouses and a historic hotel. The district matters as a typical Wiregrass railroad town center, grown up around a flag station on the railroad finished in 1868. Judson L. Hand, a sawmill and naval stores operator who became the first mayor, platted the town and built a commissary into the Hand Trading Company, said to be the world's largest rural department store. The commercial area has changed little since his death in 1916.","period_of_significance":"1880s - 1920s","architect_builder":"Multiple; Hand Trading Company by Walker and Chase, a firm of Atlanta architects","architectural_style":"Italianate, Victorian Eclectic, Commercial, Renaissance Revival, and Beaux-Arts; Carnegie Library is Neoclassical","criteria":["A","B","C"],"status_note":"Condition is marked excellent, good and fair; the district is occupied, in commercial and government use, with a few non-contributing buildings and some remodeled storefronts.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:40.4884-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_GA/83000238.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/83000238/ebda02a641-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/83000238/ebda02a641-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Michael Rivera","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carnegie_Library,_Pelham.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Michael Rivera</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:Carnegie_Library,_Pelham.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/93209003","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelham_Commercial_Historic_District","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q29094710"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/georgia/mitchell-county/pelham-commercial-historic-district-83000238/"}