{"nrhp_refnum":"93000497","name":"New Castle Historic District (Boundary Increase)","other_names":["VDHR File No. 268-16"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Boyd, Broad, Court, Main, Market, Middle, Race and Walnut Sts., VA 42 and VA 311, Mitchell Dr. and Salem Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"New Castle","county":"Craig County","state":"VA","lat":37.50006736750004,"lon":-80.11282388459338,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1993-06-10","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce","Transportation","Politics/Government","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A boundary increase to the New Castle Historic District in the town of New Castle, Craig County, Virginia, covering the intact Main Street commercial area and surrounding residential neighborhoods, with 109 contributing and 18 noncontributing resources counted in this increase.","why_significant":"The expanded district preserves much of the early-nineteenth-century town grid plan laid out in 1818 and expanded in 1834. It also keeps mid-nineteenth-century government and domestic buildings tied to New Castle's selection as the Craig County seat in 1851, plus late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century commercial, social, religious and residential buildings. The text does not give the formal criteria or period of significance.","narrative":"New Castle, the county seat of Craig County, Virginia, is a small town whose historic core was expanded in this boundary increase. William Anderson platted the town in 1818 on a rectangular grid of quarter-acre lots, and the grid was extended in 1834 when the Cumberland Gap Road was surveyed along Main Street. When Craig County was formed in 1851, the town received a Greek Revival courthouse with a Doric portico and cupola and a brick sheriff's office and jail, both built in 1851-1852. Across the street, a tavern was enlarged in 1854-1855 into the Central Hotel. The district also contains log and frame dwellings from the early and mid nineteenth century, I-houses, and brick commercial buildings of the Bank Square Subdivision from 1890 to 1920. Later houses include Queen Anne and Craftsman examples, among them the Spessard House of 1898, designed by mail-order architect George F. Barber. Of the resources in the expanded district, more than 86 percent contribute to its historic character.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Courthouse plans drawn by Scuyler W. Smith and built by Stokes Pusey & Co. of Roanoke County; Nathaniel Spessard House designed by George F. Barber","architectural_style":"Greek Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne, Stick/Eastlake, Beaux Arts, Colonial Revival, Classical Revival, Bungalow/Craftsman, I-House","criteria":[],"status_note":"Current functions include dwellings, businesses, a city hall, fire station, post office, courthouse, churches, and a museum. The Central Hotel is described as substantially unchanged from its 1854-1855 appearance.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:52:00.725149-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/81/6802/41680281/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/93000497.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/93000497/f640f1884c-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/93000497/f640f1884c-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Nyttend","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Craig_County_Courthouse,_New_Castle.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Nyttend</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Craig_County_Courthouse,_New_Castle.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41680281","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Castle_Historic_District_(New_Castle,_Virginia)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14712950"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/craig-county/new-castle-historic-district-boundary-increase-93000497/"}