Avery Avenue Historic District

Avery Avenue Historic District is a residential neighborhood in Morganton, North Carolina, laid out along parts of Avery Avenue and Lenoir, Morehead, Walker, Evans and Short Streets. It contains 143 buildings, of which 112 contribute to its character, and it is the city's largest group of historic homes. The oldest surviving houses, the Powe and Ervin houses on Lenoir Street, date from the mid-1870s and began as farmhouses on large rural parcels. Avery Avenue was cut about 1885, and Morehead, Evans and Walker Streets were opened in 1905 and 1909 for middle- and working-class housing, most of which was built in the 1920s and 1930s. Small Craftsman-influenced bungalows and eclectic cottages are the most common house types. Queen Anne houses, Victorian cottages and Colonial Revival remodelings add variety. Modern commercial development has changed part of Avery Avenue, but the district boundaries exclude most later construction, and the area keeps its historic residential feel.