Spring Hope Historic District

Spring Hope's historic district covers 26 blocks in western Nash County, North Carolina, where the piedmont meets the inner coastal plain. The town grew around the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, and its gridded streets follow the tracks. A commercial core of attached one- and two-story brick buildings, mostly dating from 1900 to 1911, centers on the former depot, which now houses the public library. Surrounding streets hold tree-lined residential blocks, with houses built from the 1880s to the 1930s. The most common type is the triple-A cottage, with twenty-two surviving examples. Larger I houses, Queen Anne dwellings and four Neo-Classical Revival residences reflect the town's more prosperous families. Former warehouses, a cotton press room, early filling stations and two brick churches add to the mix. The district is notable as a well-preserved example of how a small railroad and agricultural trading town developed in eastern North Carolina in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. About 160 resources contribute to its character.