Grassy Creek Historic District

Grassy Creek is a farming valley in Ashe County, North Carolina, close to the Virginia line, and this district covers roughly 725 acres of its farms and crossroads. Cattle raising has driven the local economy for about 150 years. The Greer family arrived in the early nineteenth century, built a brick late-Federal house for Aquilla Greer around 1812-1817, and over four generations raised Shorthorn cattle and established six farms. Most of the district's character comes from frame farmhouses built between 1885 and 1920, with scroll-sawn porches, shingled gables and stained-and-grained interiors, each surrounded by barns, spring houses and other outbuildings. The Greers began commercial dairying in the early twentieth century, helped found a cheese factory in 1915, and later moved their dairy operations to Maryland. A group of crossroads buildings and the unaltered 1904 Methodist church reinforce the turn-of-the-century appearance that defines the district.