South Broad Street Row

Six late Victorian frame houses line South Broad Street in Mooresville, just south of the commercial district and beside the railroad tracks. They are the last intact part of a larger group of early residences that once stood on both sides of the line. Built between about 1885 and 1914, the one- and two-story dwellings share ornamented porches, brackets, kingpost gables and segmental or pointed-arch window and door surrounds. The row includes a former Presbyterian manse from 1891 and houses tied to a physician, a pharmacist, a department store owner, a cotton seed oil mill manager who later served as mayor, and a contractor's family. Their listing rests on the link to Mooresville's earliest residential growth, which followed the arrival of the railroad in 1873 and carried the town from 23 residents to about 1,000 by 1900. The row also reflects the prominent local citizens who lived there and the period's architecture.