Singers Glen Historic District

Singers Glen is a village of about 69 buildings spread along Route 613 in a mountain hollow in western Rockingham County, Virginia. It began in the early nineteenth century around the farm of Joseph Funk, who compiled and later published shape-note hymnals for rural religious groups. A post office opened in 1860 and the settlement took the name Singers Glen. The publishing firm moved to Dayton in 1878, yet the village prospered most in the following decades, and about 70 percent of its buildings predate World War I. Notable structures include the Victorian Gothic Glen Farm, Eastlake-style houses built by local craftsmen, the brick T. Funk and Sons Store of 1895, the Swank Store, two churches, and an old cemetery. The Funk and Swank families shaped local commerce and politics, and the village was briefly incorporated in 1894. Growth stopped after World War I, leaving a well-preserved late nineteenth-century community.