Tarboro Historic District

Tarboro, on the Tar River in Edgecombe County, was founded in 1760 at the upper limit of navigation and grew into a regional trade and government center. Its historic district contains a grid of streets laid out from a riverside town common, with brick commercial blocks along Main Street, residential areas of antebellum, Victorian and early twentieth-century houses, and industrial and warehouse buildings near the river landing and railroad. The district is significant for its role in the state's inland trade, particularly the export of cotton and other goods by steamboat in the antebellum period, and for its many associated leaders in politics, business and religion. Its architecture includes villas, a handsome antebellum church, Italianate and classical commercial facades, and bungalows and worker's cottages. The district preserves the full range of building types from a small county seat, many of them surviving in a compact setting.