The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation's historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America's historic and archeological resources.

Property Name	Glade Spring Commercial Historic District
Reference Number	13000345
State	Virginia
County	Washington
Town	Glade Spring
Street Address	Portions of Town Square Street, Grace Street, East Glade Street, and Hemlock Street
Multiple Property Submission Name	N/A
Status	Listed 5/28/2013
Link to full file	http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/feature/places/pdfs/13000345.pdf

The Glade Spring Commercial Historic District comprises the commercial core of a nineteenthcentury community oriented toward the railroad. The historic district is locally significant under Criteria A and C in the areas of Transportation, Commerce, and Architecture, with a period of significance of 1866-1962. This period begins at the construction date of the oldest extant resource (Gill's Hotel at 115 Hemlock Street). It ends in 1962, after which activities begun historically continued to have importance but do not rise to the exceptional level of significance needed to justify extending the period beyond the usual limit of 50 years ago. The Town of Glade Spring is a town of approximately 1,500 people located just north of Interstate 81 in Washington County. The transportation corridors of the Great Valley of Virginia have played an important role throughout the community's history. Glade Spring's role as a local commercial hub and an incorporated town is significant in the economic history of Washington County. It is also representative of small commercial towns in the Great Valley that thrived along the railroad during its heyday from the mid-nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century. By the 1950s, these towns began to suffer decline due to loss of passenger service on trains through the area and competition for freight from large trucks moving along improved roads and interstate highways. The downtown retains many of the physical vestiges of this history, including its historic commercial building inventory (largely from the first half of the twentieth century), orientation toward the extant railroad corridor, and street layout. Examples of the period's range of commercial architecture exhibit a variety of facades and some elaborate masonry techniques. Currently, the town's economy is oriented toward service businesses along the interstate, while many residents commute to jobs in the Tri-Cities area of Bristol, Johnson City, and Kingsport along the Virginia-Tennessee line.

 

Properties are listed in the National Register of Historic Places under four criteria: A, B, C, and D. For information on what these criterion are and how they are applied, please see our Bulletin on How to Apply the National Register Criteria

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