Clinton Commercial Historic District

Clinton's commercial core clusters around the Sampson County Courthouse square and the surrounding blocks of Main, Vance, Elizabeth, Wall and Sampson streets. A fire in July 1902 destroyed almost the entire downtown, and the town rebuilt in the early twentieth century. Most of the district's one- and two-story brick buildings date from that rebuilding through the 1940s, with corbeled cornices, segmental arched windows and parapeted rooflines as common features. The courthouse, built in 1904, was remodeled in 1938 in the Colonial Revival style by architect R. R. Markley. Nearby are the ornate pressed-metal Powell and Bethune Buildings of 1902, the Classical Revival Johnson Building, a 1936 Colonial Revival post office, and the c. 1917 railroad depot and freight station. Automobile dealerships and 1930s and 1940s storefronts show later growth. The district holds 71 contributing and 20 noncontributing resources, and its period of significance runs from about 1901 to 1951. It conveys Clinton's development as a railroad town and county seat.