Rockingham Historic District

East of Rockingham's downtown commercial center lies a neighborhood of more than 200 buildings, mostly residential, dating chiefly from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century. Fayetteville Road, the old route toward Cross Creek, is its main thoroughfare. Between 1850 and 1870 early textile manufacturers built large houses on spacious grounds along it, and their descendants later built on lots subdivided from those estates. Frame construction dominates, using local yellow pine, and tall willow and water oaks line the streets. The oldest surviving house is the Steele-Johnson-Cole House of 1838, which combines Federal and Greek Revival elements. Later examples include Greek Revival porches, Italianate ornament, a Queen Anne house with a three-story tower, Neo-Classical homes designed by a Charlotte firm, and many Colonial Revival houses built during the textile boom of the early 1900s. About two-thirds of the structures contribute to the district's character, and few are definite intrusions. The district also holds two early churches, an early school and a family cemetery.