Ashby Street Shotgun Row Historic District

Three narrow wooden houses stand side by side on Ashby Street in Americus, Georgia, in the McCoy Hill neighborhood, historically African-American. Built between about 1908 and 1912, they are shotgun-type dwellings with Folk Victorian touches, including full-width front porches with square or turned columns, front gables with ventilation grills, transoms over the doors and six-over-six windows. Inside, each is one room wide and three rooms deep with no hallway, and a double-sided fireplace sits between the front two rooms. They are significant for architecture because they keep their long, narrow form and ornamented porches in a uniform row, and shotgun houses have become increasingly rare in the city. They also matter for ethnic heritage. McCoy Hill was settled by freed slaves in the 1870s and became the main Black neighborhood in Americus, with churches, stores, a school and a hospital. Much of that neighborhood has since been lost, leaving these houses as rare reminders of it. Rehabilitation was under way at the time of listing.