Traphill Historic District

Traphill is a small crossroads village on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge in northeastern Wilkes County. Its historic core contains about a dozen buildings, including the Joseph Bryan House of about 1847, the Old Storehouse from 1850-1870, two churches, stores, and houses built through the early twentieth century. All are plain vernacular buildings, typically weatherboarded with stone foundations and restrained decoration such as beaded boards. The community grew as a trading center, was known for Union sympathizers during the Civil War, and afterward became a regional educational center through Methodist and Baptist academies, including the Traphill Institute of 1891, which still stands in altered form. Few rural North Carolina crossroads settlements have kept so many of their late nineteenth-century buildings and their undeveloped surroundings. The district was recognized for representing rural community life in western North Carolina and for its range of domestic, commercial, agricultural and institutional building types.