Varina Commercial Historic District

This district in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina, covers roughly a block and a half of modest brick commercial buildings along Broad and South Fayetteville Streets, facing the frame Union Station. Twelve buildings contribute, dating from about 1910 to the mid-1920s. They share a plain commercial vernacular look, with corbelled cornices, squint quoins and stone sills and lintels. Many shopfronts have been replaced, but the upper floors keep their character. Notable buildings include two Bank of Varina buildings, a hotel built for the tobacco trade, a drugstore, and a garage and machine company. The district grew from the 1899 plat of the Town of Varina, laid out where two railroads crossed. Tobacco warehouses and the rail connections made the area a regional trade center, and by 1940 the market was the largest single-sale bright leaf market in the Carolinas and Georgia. After the 1950s the district lost business to shopping centers and the Fuquay side of town, and the railroad tracks were later removed.