Riverton Historic District

Riverton is a village-scale neighborhood at the northern edge of Front Royal, set on the plateau where the North and South Forks of the Shenandoah River join. The 66-acre district contains mostly houses and outbuildings, along with a Gothic Revival Methodist church, a former hotel, and a former company store and post office. Its earliest landmark is Riverside, begun in the 1830s and finished in 1849. Most buildings date from the late 19th century, when the Manassas Gap and Shenandoah Valley railroads and local industry spurred growth. Samuel Carson's lime works built worker housing and the store, and he lived at Dellbrook, a Queen Anne brick house of about 1884. Dorastus Cone, who operated Riverton Mills, built the Italianate house Lackawanna in 1869. New bridges and a road realignment in 1941 bypassed the older village core and left much of it unchanged. The district was listed for its architecture and its industrial history, with a period of significance of 1849 to 1950.