Centerville Historic District

Centerville is a linear village of about 94 contributing buildings strung along the Old National Pike for roughly 3,300 feet in Washington County. Surveyed and plotted in 1819 and 1821 after the National Road reached the area in 1818, it grew around taverns, shops and wagon stands serving travelers. Most of its early buildings are locally made brick in vernacular Federal and Greek Revival forms, set close to the road. The John Rogers Tavern, built about 1821, and the Zephania Riggle Tavern, built about 1835, are among the survivors. The village later served as a commercial center for surrounding farms and mines, and it is noted for the 1872 Romanesque Revival Methodist-Episcopal Church and the E.H. Griffith Store. A John Williams Service Station of about 1920 recalls the road's revival for automobile touring. After the B & O Railroad opened in 1853 and through-traffic declined, the village kept its National Road-era form, and it is regarded as an intact example of a pike town.