{"nrhp_refnum":"97000151","name":"Grayson County Courthouse and Clerk's Office, Old","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Jct. of Greenville and Justice Rds.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Galax","county":"Grayson County","state":"VA","lat":36.654758154000035,"lon":-80.96041888899998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1997-02-21","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Politics/Government"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Two brick buildings in Old Town, eastern Grayson County, Virginia: the 1834 county courthouse and the 1810 one-room Clerk's Office, which sits diagonally across the road at Greenville Road and Justice Road.","why_significant":"The buildings are the main parts of Grayson County's first civic complex and are tied to the county's growth and the 1842 formation of Carroll County (Criterion A). The courthouse is described as the most intact and least altered courthouse by master builder James Toncray (Criterion C).","narrative":"Two brick buildings in Old Town, Grayson County, Virginia, make up the county's first civic complex. The courthouse, built in 1834 by master builder James Toncray, has a two-story central block with two-story flanking wings, a slate roof and a cut sandstone foundation. It looks more like a large house than a public building. Across the road, the one-room Clerk's Office was built in 1810 by Martin Dickenson and was the county's first. The county seat moved to Independence in 1850 after Carroll County was split off in 1842. The courthouse then served as a private residence, a hotel after 1871, an apartment building and a hay barn, and was restored from 1988. The Clerk's Office became a post office, a dental office and a voting precinct. The nomination calls the courthouse the most intact and least altered of Toncray's courthouses, and both buildings examples of late Federal civic architecture in Southwest Virginia.","period_of_significance":"1834-1852 (Courthouse); 1810 (Clerk's Office)","architect_builder":"Toncray, James (Courthouse); Dickenson, Martin (Clerk's Office)","architectural_style":"Early Republic/Federal","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Courthouse was occupied as a private residence by 1989 after restoration and remodeling begun in 1988; current function listed as domestic single dwelling, with work in progress.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:52:00.639713-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/13/6810/41681013/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/97000151.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/97000151/759ea69e8e-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/97000151/759ea69e8e-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Ceh2624","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OldGraysonCountyCourthouse.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Ceh2624</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:OldGraysonCountyCourthouse.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41681013","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Grayson_County_Courthouse_and_Clerk%27s_Office","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14713018"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/grayson-county/grayson-county-courthouse-and-clerks-office-old-97000151/"}