Central Shelby Historic District

Central Shelby Historic District in Cleveland County, North Carolina, centers on the public square and its 1907 limestone courthouse, which replaced an 1845 brick building. Around it lie the central business district and two residential streets, South Washington and West Marion, once home to the town's leading merchants, professionals and industrialists. Shelby's founders laid out wide streets in a grid, inspired by Washington, D.C., so the streets and mature trees have survived without widening. The buildings span about a century of styles. Surviving mid-nineteenth-century houses blend piedmont vernacular with Greek Revival, followed by Second Empire houses, Colonial Revival residences and many bungalows. Downtown, two-story brick commercial blocks replaced frame stores from the 1880s, with the Washburn Block the best intact example. Other landmarks include the yellow brick First Baptist Church, the Royster Building and an Egyptian Revival Masonic Temple. Deep lawns, shade trees and uniform setbacks give the neighborhoods continuity, and the district's overall character has changed little since World War II.