Church-Smith-Harris Street Historic District

Southeast of downtown Sandersville, the county seat of Washington County, Georgia, this 105-acre neighborhood runs along Church, Smith and Harris Streets. It has the largest grouping of historic houses in the city, nearly all of frame construction, with 60 contributing and 10 noncontributing properties. Styles run from vernacular Greek Revival houses of the 1840s and 1850s to Tudor Revival houses of the early 1930s, including Queen Anne residences, bungalows, and two Gothic Revival churches. Many houses keep outbuildings such as barns and a cook's house. Local firm Lang's Variety Works produced much of the late nineteenth-century millwork. The area was not planned. Large tracts, many of them former farms, were subdivided piece by piece along roads leading into town between 1845 and 1935, producing varied lot sizes and an irregular street pattern. The district was listed for its architecture and for its example of incremental neighborhood growth typical of Georgia county seats. It also housed prominent local judges, businessmen and physicians.