Virginia Hill Historic District

Virginia Hill is a residential neighborhood in Bristol, Virginia, about five blocks north of the downtown commercial center and the Virginia-Tennessee state line. Lots were subdivided and sold after land north of the early town was purchased in 1871, and most were built on between 1890 and 1910. The district has 129 primary buildings, including 125 dwellings, two schools and two commercial buildings, and 118 of them contribute to its character. Queen Anne houses dominate the earlier decades, alongside gabled ell, hall-and-parlor and shotgun forms. Colonial Revival, Dutch Colonial, American Foursquare, Bungalow and a single notable Tudor Revival house followed in the early twentieth century. The 1923 Thomas Jefferson Public School, three brick apartment buildings and a corner market reflect the neighborhood's growth. Wide, tree-lined streets, close-set houses and original stone or concrete retaining walls preserve its early twentieth-century character, and rehabilitation since the 1990s has reversed a period of decline.