New Castle Historic District (Boundary Increase)

New Castle, the county seat of Craig County, Virginia, is a small town whose historic core was expanded in this boundary increase. William Anderson platted the town in 1818 on a rectangular grid of quarter-acre lots, and the grid was extended in 1834 when the Cumberland Gap Road was surveyed along Main Street. When Craig County was formed in 1851, the town received a Greek Revival courthouse with a Doric portico and cupola and a brick sheriff's office and jail, both built in 1851-1852. Across the street, a tavern was enlarged in 1854-1855 into the Central Hotel. The district also contains log and frame dwellings from the early and mid nineteenth century, I-houses, and brick commercial buildings of the Bank Square Subdivision from 1890 to 1920. Later houses include Queen Anne and Craftsman examples, among them the Spessard House of 1898, designed by mail-order architect George F. Barber. Of the resources in the expanded district, more than 86 percent contribute to its historic character.