Lansing Historic District

Lansing is a small railroad town in the north of Ashe County, North Carolina, set in a narrow valley where Old Field Branch meets Big Horse Creek. Its downtown centres on a single stoplight at NC Highway 194 and South Big Horse Creek Road, and the residential streets climb the surrounding hillsides. The Virginia-Carolina Railroad reached the town between 1914 and 1916, and the timber trade that followed drove much of its growth through the 1910s and 1920s. Many of the district's buildings date from that boom and from the later years when Lansing served farmers as a trading centre. The commercial core includes one- and two-story brick buildings, rare wood-frame commercial buildings and Commercial Style blocks built mostly in the mid-1930s through the 1950s. Bungalows, a Queen Anne house and Craftsman-influenced houses make up much of the residential stock. The district is considered to retain good integrity, with changes mostly limited to replacement windows, siding and storefronts.