Rocky Mount Central City Historic District (Boundary Increase and Decrease)

Rocky Mount's central district sits on both sides of the railroad that forms the Nash and Edgecombe county line. Listed originally in 1980, it holds brick commercial buildings from the city's tobacco-and-manufacturing boom, with corbelled cornices, arched windows and cast-iron storefronts. This update adds thirty-two edge properties, among them commercial buildings, houses, service stations, two Gothic Revival churches, funeral homes, the 1924 Mediterranean Revival Fire Station No. 2, the 1937 Art Deco Memorial Hospital, and the 1951 Modernist Union Bus Station. Two blocks near East Thomas Street, just north of the African American business district, preserve seven early twentieth-century dwellings. The circa 1895 Summerlin House retains ornate Victorian porch work. Because sixty-nine buildings were demolished after 1980, thirty-one edge parcels were removed from the boundary. The period of significance now runs to 1961, allowing mid-century buildings to be counted as part of the district's continued development.