{"nrhp_refnum":"90002196","name":"Urbanna Historic District","other_names":["VDHR File No. 316-9","See Also:Landsdowne","Wormeley Cottage","Mil"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Roughly bounded by Virginia St., Rappahannock Ave., Watling St. and Urbanna Cr.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Urbanna","county":"Middlesex County","state":"VA","lat":37.63562728750006,"lon":-76.57408140546642,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1991-02-07","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce","Exploration/Settlement","Politics/Government","Architecture","Maritime History"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A historic district covering most of the residential, commercial and waterfront area of the small port town of Urbanna, on the west bank of Urbanna Creek where it meets the Rappahannock River in Middlesex County, Virginia. The town was founded under a 1680 colonial act and laid out in the 1690s.","why_significant":"The district keeps its colonial town plan and holds one of Virginia's eleven surviving colonial courthouses (1748), two mid-18th-century houses and a rare 1760s tobacco storehouse. It also has a wide range of late 19th and early 20th century houses, stores, a bank and churches. These show the town's growth as a tobacco port, county seat and local commercial center.","narrative":"Urbanna is a small Tidewater port town on Urbanna Creek, near the Rappahannock River in Middlesex County, Virginia. It was created after a 1680 colonial act encouraging towns, and lots were first sold in 1691. Henry Towles resurveyed it in the 1740s, and the irregular street grid on his map largely survives. The district includes the 1748 courthouse, later altered into a church and now a women's club, which is one of only eleven colonial courthouses left in Virginia. Other early buildings include Lansdowne, a fine Georgian brick mansion, Wormeley Cottage, and the 1760s Old Tobacco Warehouse, now the library. Later buildings reflect the town's commerce and religious life, including Haywood's Store, the Bristow Store, the Romanesque Revival Bank of Middlesex and the Carpenter Gothic Baptist church built in 1896 by Charles H. Palmer. Queen Anne houses, bungalows and Colonial Revival dwellings fill out the streets. Together they record Urbanna's development from tobacco port and county seat to a local commercial center.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Charles H. Palmer (local builder/architect, 1874-1904); Henry Towles (1741 town survey)","architectural_style":"Georgian, Federal, Queen Anne (also Carpenter Gothic, Romanesque Revival, Colonial Revival, Bungalow, American Foursquare)","criteria":[],"status_note":"Still a working town; the old courthouse is used by a women's club, the Old Tobacco Warehouse has been the library since 1967, and several stores remain in business.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:52:00.688536-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/74/6819/41681974/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/90002196.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/90002196/27051b3b3c-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/90002196/27051b3b3c-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"Mojo Hand","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Urbanna_VA.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Mojo Hand</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:Urbanna_VA.jpg"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"100005837","name":"Occupacia-Rappahannock Rural Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/virginia/occupacia-rappahannock-rural-historic-district-100005837/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41681974","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanna_Historic_District","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14713428"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/middlesex-county/urbanna-historic-district-90002196/"}