Agenda - 08-25-1997 - C2 - Laserfiche WebLink

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HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF CEDAR GROVE Description. The Cedar Grove Rural Crossroads Historic District is comprised of approximately 105 acres and contains 22 contributing primary structures, 5 non-contributing primary structures, and 1 non-contributing site. The most prominent built resources of the district include two each of historically significant and architecturally notable Colonial Revival houses, churches and store buildings. The architectural landscape of the community is one of a rural vernacular aesthetic, and although the primary barns associated with the farmsteads have disappeared, sufficient physical vestiges in the form of field patterns strongly allude to the historical agrarian character of the community. National Register Eligibility Criteria. The Cedar Grove Rural Crossroads Historic District is eligible for National Register listing under Criteria A and C. Criterion A of the National Register evaluation process states that "property is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history. " Cedar Grove has significance in four areas under Criterion A: a) Exploration and Settlement. Cedar Grove exhibits the historical pattern of development in North Carolina's rural agricultural communities which manifested in the emergence of commercial and social centers along the intersections of primary roads. The district embodies the characteristics of a once-prevalent rural agrarian landscape that evolved as a result of human activity and use. Of the half-dozen or so rural crossroads communities that evolved during the nineteenth century in Orange County, Cedar Grove is among the most intact and least altered examples among this disappearing genre. b) Agriculture. The land has been continuously farmed throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and existing field patterns in the area deviate little from those evident during the early to mid-twentieth century. These continuing patterns of cultivation are testimony to the prevalence of farming over the course of the community's development. c) Social History. Cedar Grove's physical development represents an era in North Carolina's history that virtually disappeared after the advent of the automobile and the construction of the interstate highway system. d) Ethnic Heritage. Cedar Grove was a mecca for African-American string band musicians and the square dances they accompanied between the years of 1930 and 1947. Criterion C of the National Register evaluation process states that the "property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction. " Significant under Criterion C in the area of Architecture, the community's enduring vitality is exhibited in a notable and