Marshall Main Street Historic District

Marshall's Main Street district occupies roughly thirteen acres in the middle of town, on the north bank of the French Broad River and alongside the railroad tracks. One- to three-story brick buildings line both sides of the street, with a few of fieldstone or river rock, and many sit side by side with uniform setbacks. Most are Commercial Style, with flat roofs and parapets. Other styles include Romanesque Revival, Mission Revival, Gothic Revival and Neoclassical Revival. Notable buildings include the 1907 Madison County Courthouse, the 1912 M. E. Church South, the 1922 Bank of French Broad, the 1928 O. C. Rector Building and the 1849 Colonel Lawrence M. Allen House. The district holds forty contributing and nine noncontributing buildings and outbuildings. It was listed as an intact grouping of the town's center from the mid-nineteenth century through 1950. Earlier wood-frame buildings gave way to brick and stone in the twentieth century, while the street kept its commercial uses along with a few homes and churches.