Glade Spring Commercial Historic District Glade Spring, Virginia

Text courtesy of the National Register of Historic Places, a program of the National Parks Service. Minor transcription errors or changes in formatting may have occurred; please see the Nomination Form PDF for official text. Some information may have become outdated since the property was nominated for the Register.

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.