Main Street Historic District - Chappell Hill, TX - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

The posted coordinates will lead you to a wooden open shed labeled "Chappell Hill, Texas", located near the center of the town of Chappell Hill’s "Main Street Historic District".

This particular historic district encompasses 36 architecturally or historically significant limestone, brick, and wood-frame buildings (incl. a 19th century church) within roughly 3 blocks of the town’s Main Street – starting at Providence Street in the South and going up to a little beyond Chestnut Street in the North. It includes 26 commercial and residential NRHP Historic District “Contributing” buildings, mostly built between 1850 and 1915, each one unmodified since its construction (or, if modified, only minimally on a per-needed basis due to normal wear and tear) and reflecting the many variations in taste within that time period. Architectural types range from modified Victorian cottages and well-designed, modest, brick commercial buildings to the mid-19th-century Greek Revival, a once prolific residential architectural form in that town.

Most of the non-residential buildings within the District have continuously functioned as commercial and retail establishments: many of them are actually still owned by the original families or have just recently been sold. Also, most of them follow a similar architectural pattern: one story wooden and brick structures with usually three or more bays, modest in scale, with double French doors and simple ornamental details. There are, however, two exceptions: a single stone structure (the so-called “Rock Store”) was constructed in 1869 of thick native sandstone and massive hand-hewn and pegged pine timbers. Likewise, the District's only two-story brick building is the “Schaer Store/Masonic Lodge” which was plastered at the second level and constructed in 1913.

Also represented within the district are 16 houses at the Northern and Southern edges, of varying architectural tones: Chappell Hill Greek Revival, Bungaloid, Colonial Revival, Late Victorian, and Queen Anne.

The Main Street Historic District reflects the progressive stages of Chappell Hill’s economic and commercial development between 1850 and 1930. Crucial to the economic success of the cotton plantations and farms along the rich bottom lands of the Brazos River, this particular commercial district functioned as an early railroad terminus and shipment center for southeast Washington County. It was also a main center of communication with the remainder of Texas: at the outbreak of the Civil War, most of the state's communications network centered in Chappell Hill and nearby Washington-on-the-Brazos. Telegraph reports of the Civil War's progress were relayed from Chappell Hill's Main Street office to the Capitol at Austin, which had no telegraph service at this time.

Early prosperity and growth within the commercial area was somewhat slowed by the Civil War, although the effects of Reconstruction had less of an impact here than in other Texas towns. Today, the downtown area still provides some of these basic amenities, as well as serving as the symbol of a town that has survived attempts at modernization, decentralization, and the threat of extinction. While its development is comparable to other early important towns of the Texas Republic, such as Washington-on-the-Brazos or Independence, Chappell Hill's Main Street is the only one of these still intact and in continuous commercial use in Texas’ Washington County.

-Source: various articles from official NRHP records.

Street address: Main Street, between Providence and Chestnut Streets Chappell Hill, TX USA 77426 County / Borough / Parish: Washington county Year listed: 1985 Historic (Areas of) Significance: Architecture & Engineering / Commerce, Transportation, Architecture Periods of significance: 1925-1949, 1900-1924, 1875-1899, 1850-1874 Historic function: Commerce/Trade, Domestic Current function: Commerce/Trade, Domestic Privately owned?: no Primary Web Site: [Web Link] Secondary Website 1: [Web Link] Season start / Season finish: Not listed Hours of operation: Not listed Secondary Website 2: Not listed National Historic Landmark Link: Not listed

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