Salem Street Historic District
The Salem Street Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. Portions of the content on this web page were adapted from a copy of the original nomination document. [‡]
Description
The Salem Street Historic District (also a local historic district, 2001) is a National Register residential district located immediately north of Thomasville's historic downtown (National Register, 2005) on the main road (NC 109) leading to Thomasville from the north. Of the twenty-five primary resources, all are houses, except for two churches. Of the twenty-six secondary resources, twenty are garages, carports, and sheds or storage buildings. There are also six miscellaneous structures, including a picnic shelter, a deck, a swimming pool, a barbecue pit, a columbarium, and a labyrinth.
Covering approximately sixteen-and-a-half acres, the Salem Street Historic District is composed of portions of four city blocks. It largely follows a linear plan, with all but five of the buildings arranged along the east and west sides of Salem Street. The other five are located on Forsyth Street and Leonard Street. These three streets are straight and function together like part of a grid, in the sense that Salem Street runs north-south, and Forsyth and Leonard streets run east-west and "T" into Salem Street at right angles, with Forsyth Street approaching Salem Street from the west and Leonard Street approaching from the east. [To facilitate ease of discussion here, Salem Street is considered to run north-south, though technically it runs northwest-southeast, and likewise, Forsyth and Leonard streets technically run northeast-southwest instead of simply east-west.]
Overall, the Salem Street Historic District's topography is flat. There are no natural elements of significance and, except for the three streets and the sidewalks, man-made features are composed solely of the district's buildings and structures. There are no squares or open spaces, except for the open or wooded areas on several of the lots. There are no vacant lots, but there is one parking lot, which is associated with Heidelberg Church.
The Salem Street Historic District forms a cohesive unit of historic buildings that is distinguished from its surroundings in the following ways. On the north are apartment complexes and houses of later dates of construction. On the south are the commercial and government buildings of Thomasville's downtown. On the east are vacant land and houses and apartments of later dates of construction, and on the west are apartments and houses of later dates of construction or different characters.
Because the Salem Street Historic District evolved over a period of nearly a century and was not a planned development, lot sizes and building arrangements on the lots vary. Lots are from 55 to 211 feet wide and from 96 to 416 feet deep. Likewise, setbacks from the street vary from 15 to 75 feet, though all of the primary buildings are set within the front half of their lots. In addition, some of the primary buildings are set at a slight angle to the street, rather than facing it head-on. Landscaping within the Salem Street Historic District consists primarily of lawns, a generous number of trees — though they are not in a regular pattern — and a variety of shrubbery, more often than not arranged informally.
Some of the Salem Street Historic District's overall character can been seen in the scale, proportions, materials, decoration, and design quality of its resources. Of the Salem Street Historic District's twenty-five primary resources, just over half (thirteen) are two stories in height. Of the remaining twelve resources, half are one-story. Among the others are four buildings that are one-and-a-half stories and two that are two-and-a-half stories. More than two-thirds of the buildings are three bays wide. Making up the remaining eight buildings are three that are four bays wide, two that are two bays wide, and one each that are one, five, and six bays wide. The largest building in the Salem Street Historic District is the two-and-a-half story brick Heidelberg Church near the district's center at 118 Salem Street; the smallest is probably the one-story frame White House at 12 Forsyth Street. Nearly three-quarters (eighteen) of the Salem Street Historic District's twenty-five primary resources are of frame construction. Of these, half are weather-boarded and half have been vinyl-sided. Of the remaining buildings, six are brick (one is half stuccoed), and one is stone. Building decoration tends to be fairly simple. The most ornate building is the Strickland-Long House at 117 Salem Street, but most of that decoration dates from the mid-1980s and is based on supposition of the original decoration. Most decoration in the Salem Street Historic District is executed in the same material as the body of the building. Exceptions include the use of wood, cast stone, or stucco on brick buildings and ironwork used in conjunction with one frame house. Building workmanship in the Salem Street Historic District ranges from good to excellent, and the overall quality of design is high. Several buildings — Heidelberg Church at 118 Salem Street, the Leon A. Kress House at 125 Salem Street, the Morris-Harris House at 207 Salem Street, and the Peacock-Pope House at 211 Salem Street — exhibit exceptionally high quality of design.
Stylistically, the Salem Street Historic District is very diverse, with representatives of many of the styles popular from the late-nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century. The Colonial Revival style, including the Dutch Colonial Revival, is the most prevalent, but it accounts for little more than one third of the buildings. Three of the best examples of the Colonial Revival style, all with refined classical detailing, are the Morris-Harris House at 207 Salem Street, the George W. Lyles House at 208 Salem Street, and the Meade B. Hite House at 203 Salem Street.
Four houses in the Salem Street Historic District — 10 and 12 Forsyth Street, 215 Salem Street, and 6 Leonard Street — are representative of the vernacular late Queen Anne cottage. A typical house type of the 1900s and 1910s, these houses are one- or one-and-a-half-story frame dwellings with a steep hipped roof with intersecting gables and wraparound porches. While they exhibit Queen Anne-style massing, they have very little decoration.
Three houses in the Salem Street Historic District reflect the Craftsman style of architecture. The most outstanding example is the Leon A. Kress House at 125 Salem Street. It is a one-and-a-half story brick-and-stucco Bungalow with an asymmetrical form, broad braced gables, a porch with heavy features, a side porte cochere, and an upper story surrounded by windows that rises high above the center of the house, thereby giving this house type the name "airplane bungalow." Other good examples of the Craftsman style are the Eugene L. Webb House at 112 Salem Street and the Clarence M. and Corene B. Tomlinson House at 6 Forsyth Street, both two-story frame dwellings.
The Salem Street Historic District's two churches — St Paul's Episcopal Church at 208 Salem Street and Heidelberg Evangelical and Reformed Church at 218 Salem Street — are Gothic Revival in style, with steep gable roofs, lancet-arched windows, and buttresses, among other distinctive features.
Among the other houses in the Salem Street Historic District are four other stylistic representations worthy of note. The late Victorian vernacular Strickland-Long House at 117 Salem Street has a distinctive mansard roofed tower that reflects the influence of the French Second Empire style. The Peacock-Pope House at 211 Salem Street, with its rusticated granite walls, round tower, and round arches, is not only a good and rare example of the Richardsonian Romanesque style, but is also unique in Davidson County for it extensive exterior use of granite. At the north end of the Salem Street Historic District, the G.T. Cochrane House at 301 Salem Street is an excellent representative of the Foursquare house form. The two-story frame house is nearly square in configuration and features a two-bay facade with a one-story porch, a low hipped roof, and hip-roofed dormers. Across the street, at 300 Salem Street, the Tom and Bernice Gordon House is the most modern of the Salem Street Historic District's houses. Its long, low, Ranch style massing and Minimal Traditional style detailing reflect its mid-1950s date of construction.
The Salem Street Historic District developed over a period of a century, from ca.1861 to 1957, following a natural progression of growth. During the half-century since then, the Salem Street Historic District's primary resources have remained intact. According to the Sanborn map for 1923, the first year in which the entire area of the district was recorded, six buildings that then stood within the current Salem Street Historic District boundaries no longer remain. Four of the six were replaced by current district buildings. The sites of the other two, which stood on the south side of Forsyth Street, are now part of the Heidelberg Church property. The Sanborn map also shows that five of the Salem Street Historic District's current buildings were erected on five vacant lots that existed in 1923. A review of the dates of construction of the Salem Street Historic District's twenty-five primary resources reveals that the heaviest period of building in the district was during the 1920s, accounting for nine buildings. Seven others were built in the 1910s, though one of these was substantially changed in the 1940s. Five buildings date from the decades between ca.1861 and ca.1900; three of these, located on the east side of Salem Street southward from Forsyth Street, have been subsequently remodeled. The remaining four buildings in the Salem Street Historic District date from the late 1940s through the mid 1950s.
The Salem Street Historic District's resources are in good to excellent condition. Only one building, the R.W. Thompson House at 204 Salem Street, has been moved (in 1947) and that was to its current site on the same lot but farther back from the street. At the same time, the house was substantially remodeled. Other than that house and four houses erected between ca.1861 and ca.1900 that were remodeled prior to the mid-1950s, there have been some additional alterations since the mid-1950s. These have consisted primarily of the addition of vinyl siding to nine houses. However, none of the changes has had a significant effect on the overall character of the district. Of the Salem Street Historic District's fifty-one total resources, all twenty-five of the primary buildings and eight of the secondary buildings contribute to the historic and architectural character of the district. The remainder of the secondary resources — eleven buildings and five structures — are noncontributing. This translates to sixty-five percent contributing resources and thirty-five percent — all small secondary resources — noncontributing. Thus it can be said that, overall, the Salem Street Historic District retains good historic integrity in terms of location, setting, design, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association.
Significance
Located just north of Thomasville's historic commercial downtown (NR 2005), the Salem Street Historic District holds a distinctive place in the city's architectural history. The Salem Street Historic District forms a cohesive group of twenty-three historic houses, their outbuildings, and two historic churches, whose character is distinguished from its surroundings by land use and periods of development. Ranging in date from ca.1861-1957, the Salem Street Historic District's primary resources represent a continuum of architectural styles popular during those years, including the Second Empire, Queen Anne, Richardsonian Romanesque, Colonial Revival, Craftsman, Foursquare house type, Late Gothic Revival, and Ranch styles. Known architects and builders working in the Salem Street Historic District include Harry Simmons and Joseph Sawyer, Architects, of Greensboro, who designed the Meade B. Hite House at 203 Salem Street, and Schyler Cecil, a popular local contractor, who built his own house at 8 Forsyth Street, as well as the Swicegood-Tomlinson House at 200 Salem Street and the White House at 12 Forsyth Street. Developing along one of the primary and earliest roads leading into Thomasville, the Salem Street Historic District evolved over a longer period of time than did any other residential area in the city and thus provides, through its intact and well-preserved group of buildings, a valuable microcosm of Thomasville's history as seen through its architecture. The locally significant Salem Street Historic District fulfills National Register criterion for its architectural significance. The district also meets National Register requirements because its two churches derive their primary significance from their architecture, being good examples of the Late Gothic Revival style. The Salem Street Historic District's period of significance spans nearly a century from ca.1861, the date of construction of the oldest building, to 1957, the year in which the district's last building — Heidelberg United Church of Christ Parsonage — was erected. The end of the period of significance is just under fifty years ago to recognize the parsonage, whose scale, materials, and Colonial Revival styling are consistent with earlier development in the district and are a natural continuation of that development.
Historical Background and Architecture Context
Located on the eastern edge of Davidson County in piedmont North Carolina, Thomasville is a railroad and industrial city of approximately 25,000 residents. State Senator and railroad booster John W. Thomas (1800-1871) established the town that took his name in 1852 specifically to take advantage of the coming of the long-awaited North Carolina Railroad that connected eastern North Carolina with Charlotte (Phillips, 50). On November 9, 1855, the first train arrived in Thomasville to the enthusiastic celebration of a crowd of 5,000. In 1857 the town of Thomasville was incorporated, with corporate limits of one square mile centered on the railroad's water station. In 1893 these physical dimensions were extended by a quarter mile in each direction (Phillips, 52-53; Comprehensive Architectural Survey Report, 7). Thomasville developed primarily as an industrial town. During the nineteenth century, small-scale industry was diversified, though by the end of the century, the town had become known for its manufacture of shoes. This gave way in the twentieth century to the primacy of furniture manufacturing, which evolved from a single nineteenth-century chair factory. Thomasville became famous as the "Chair Town of the South," celebrated in 1922 by the installation of "The Big Chair" — claimed to be the largest chair in the world — along the railroad tracks in the center of town. [This chair was removed because of deterioration in 1936 and was replaced by the present chair in 1950] (Phillips, 13, 53-54).
Thomasville's industry spurred the growth of the town's commerce as well as housing and a variety of community amenities. The distribution of electricity began in 1902, and the first sidewalk was laid in 1905. The following year, Salem Street was macadamized as far as West Guilford Street (just south of the Salem Street Historic District), and by 1925 Thomasville had fifteen miles of concrete sidewalks and thirteen miles of hard-surfaced streets. In 1911 the town completed construction of a 100,000-gallon water tank, and by 1912 water and sewer lines had been laid. As Thomasville grew, progress in the development of the town's infrastructure continued at a rapid pace (Phillips, 55-56).
By offering evidence of Thomasville's population growth, census records provide a good picture of the town's patterns of development. In 1860, less than a decade after the founding of the town, there were 308 residents. In 1900 this number had more than doubled to 751. The next decade saw a phenomenal growth rate of 416.2 percent, with the 1910 population standing at 3,977. The next large increase was during the 1920s, when the population nearly doubled, growing from 5,676 in 1920 to 10,090 in 1930. Thereafter, the population of Thomasville slowly crept forward, until today it stands at more than 25,000 (Phillips, 55).
Initially, houses in Thomasville sprang up along the railroad corridor, along with industry and commerce. Most of these were later demolished to make way for more commercial and industrial expansion. Later residential areas extended north along Salem Street and south along Randolph Street, together forming the primary north-south corridor through town that became NC Route 109, and in neighborhoods surrounding downtown (Comprehensive Architectural Survey Report, 1, 7). On Salem Street, houses at first were intermingled with commercial buildings along the first block, but by around 1910, residential development on the street was confined to the area north of Guilford Street, the site of the Salem Street Historic District (Sanborn Map, 1908, 1913, 1923). This choice location so close to Thomasville's center became home to many prominent Thomasville merchants, industrialists, and public office holders.
The Salem Street Historic District covers approximately sixteen-and-a-half acres and portions of four city blocks, with properties along the 200 and 300 blocks of Salem Street as well as on Forsyth and Leonard streets. It forms a cohesive area of twenty-three historic houses, their outbuildings, and two historic churches, whose character is distinguished from its surroundings by land use and periods of development. The district's primary resources range in date from ca.1861 to 1957 and represent a continuum of architectural styles popular during those years.
The earliest house known to have been located in the area covered by the Salem Street Historic District was the Whitaker House, a two-story frame dwelling built on the west side of the 100 block of Salem Street in 1858, only one year after the town's incorporation. It remained on its site, serving during the second quarter of the twentieth century as the parsonage of the Reverend Jacob A. Palmer of Heidelberg Church, until a new parsonage was erected in 1957 (Thomasville Historic Preservation Commission).
Four extant houses in the Salem Street Historic District pre-date 1900. The oldest of these is the ca.1861 Duskin-Morris-Crews House at 201 Salem Street, which was built as a simple, two-story frame house with a one-story rear ell. Around 1921, Dr. Ben Morris, a dentist, completely remodeled the house in the Dutch Colonial Revival style (Thomasville Historic Preservation Commission, 12). Another house south of the Duskin-Morris-Crews House was also built in 1861 by the Lewis family. After fire destroyed that house, the Reverend John Lewis, a Methodist Episcopal minister, built the present house at 121 Salem Street ca.1878. The two-story, weather-boarded frame house with a one-story classical porch and a double-leaf entrance with sidelights has remained in the ownership of Lewis's descendants, whose members have included two mayors of Thomasville and a furniture manufacturer, in addition to the minister (Thomasville Historic Preservation Commission, 9). The other two pre-1900 houses were built ca.1887. The Strickland-Green House at 115 Salem Street is a two-story frame dwelling that originally had a two-tier center-bay porch. City councilman and funeral homer owner J.C. Green substantially remodeled the house in the 1950s with the addition of a two-story full-facade portico and a one-story garage wing (Thomasville Historic Preservation Commission, 5). The Strickland-Long House at 117 Salem Street appears to have been the most distinctive of the pre-1900 houses. The house was updated in the late 1910s but was returned to an appearance closer to the original ca.1985. The two-story, L-shaped house with turned and sawn-work detailing is distinguished by its central tower with a Second Empire style mansard roof. That several of these houses were remodeled in later years by locally prominent owners attests to the fact that Salem Street continued to be considered a desirable residential address in Thomasville.
The years from ca.1900 through the 1910s saw the construction of a group of one- and two-story vernacular houses in the Salem Street Historic District. The ca.1900 Swicegood-Tomlinson House at 200 Salem Street and the ca.1917 Blair-Conrad-Fouts House at 202 Salem Street are both simple, two-story frame houses with three-bay facades, wraparound porches, and projecting bays, although the former has a hipped roof and the latter has a gabled roof. The Swicegood-Tomlinson House was built by local contractor Schyler Cecil, who built several other houses in the district, including the houses at 8 and 10 Forsyth Street (Thomasville Historic Preservation Commission, 11, 22, 24). Four houses, located at 10 and 12 Forsyth Street, 6 Leonard Street, and 215 Salem Street, are simple vernacular examples of a late Queen Anne style cottage. Built around 1910 and in the 1910s, they are one- or one-and-a-half-story frame dwellings, each with a steep hipped roof with intersecting gables and a wraparound porch. Although they exhibit the asymmetrical massing typical of the Queen Anne style, they lack the often exuberant decoration associated with the style.
One of the most unusual and most individually significant houses in the Salem Street Historic District was also built during this period. With its round tower with conical roof and arcaded front porch, the Peacock-Pope House at 211 Salem Street is an example of the Richardson Romanesque style rarely used in Davidson County and unique for its nearly total use of rusticated granite. Although stones were delivered for construction of the house in late 1906, construction apparently was not completed until around 1911. Dr. J.W. Peacock was a physician and a city councilman. Later owner Robie Lester Pope, who also served as a city councilman, was for years an officer of First National Bank (Thomasville Historic Preservation Commission, 19; Comprehensive Architectural Survey Report; City Directory, 1928-1929).
The 1920s brought a flurry of construction in the Salem Street Historic District, with good examples of three popular architectural styles of the period. Built ca.1920, the G.T. Cochrane House at 301 Salem Street is representative of the Foursquare house type. Nearly square in its massing, this two-story frame house exhibits other typical features of the style, including a two-bay facade, a one-story porch, a low hipped roof, and hip-roofed dormers.
The Craftsman style is seen in the Leon A. Kress House at 125 Salem Street, the Eugene L. Webb House at 112 Salem Street, and the Clarence M. and Corene B. Tomlinson House at 6 Forsyth Street. The ca.1924 Kress House is an excellent example of the so-called "airplane bungalow." The one-and-a-half story brick-and-stucco Bungalow has a typical asymmetrical form, a front porch and porte cochere with heavy tapered posts set on large brick plinths, and an upper story surrounded by windows that projects above the center of the house. The Lithuanian Jewish Kress family owned a clothing story on Main Street (Thomasville Historic Preservation Commission, 10). The ca.1920 Webb House and the ca.1925 Tomlinson House are both two-story frame examples of the Craftsman style. Both have a broad, front-facing gable roof with widely overhanging braced eaves. The Webb House is unusual in its use of rectangular-patterned leaded glass windows on the first story of the facade and within the facade gable, whose peak is slightly projecting and also makes use of panels of wood louvers. Eugene Webb owned the Thomasville Drug Store; Clarence Tomlinson was also a local merchant (Thomasville Historic Preservation Commission, 4; City Directory, 1928-1929, 1937, 1941-1942).
With six examples in the Salem Street Historic District, the Colonial Revival was the style most often built. Five of these houses date from the 1920s, while the Heidelberg United Church of Christ Parsonage at 116 Salem Street is a much later example dating from 1957. The most outstanding example is the Morris-Harris House at 207 Salem Street. Built ca.1920, the two-story, weather-boarded frame house with a steep side-gable roof has a modillioned cornice and pedimented dormers. The focal point of the five-bay wide facade is the well articulated, semi-circular, center entrance portico with its Tower of the Winds columns, full classical cornice, and balustraded deck. The south-side porch continues the detailing of the body of the house. Long-time owner Cephas L. Harris was a wholesale grocer who was a central figure in several local companies (Thomasville Historic Preservation Commission, 16; City Directory, 1928-1929, 1937, 1941-1942, 1949-1950, 1956-1957). Immediately south of the Morris-Harris House at 203 Salem Street, the ca.1927 Meade B. Hite House is the only house in the Salem Street Historic District for whom the architect is known. Designed by Harry Simmons and Joseph Sawyer, architects, of Greensboro, the two-story brick house with side-gable roof has many refined details typical of the Colonial Revival style, including brick quoining that defines the corners of the house, window lintels that consist of a brick flat arch and contrasting white keystone, a classical one-story front porch, and an entrance with sidelights and an elliptical fanlight transom. Meade Hite owned the Star Furniture Company, Thomasville's second retail furniture store established in 1904. At the same time that Hite built his house, he also constructed a three-story brick store on nearby East Guilford Street (Thomasville Historic Preservation Commission, 14; Phillips, 19). Another example of the side-gable roof form of the Colonial Revival style is the two-story frame, ca.1926 Jule and Elizabeth Blair House at 210 Salem Street. Two examples of another version of the style, the Dutch Colonial Revival, are also found in the district. This form of the Colonial Revival derives its name from the use of a gambrel roof. The ca.1926 George W. Lyles House at 208 Salem Street exhibits the common side-gambrel roof, along with long front and rear shed dormers, one-story side wings, and a hooded central entrance (Thomasville Historic Preservation Commission, 17). By contrast, the ca.1920 Schyler Cecil House at 8 Forsyth Street has a front-facing gambrel roof. It was first the home of the popular local contractor who built several of the district's houses (Thomasville Historic Preservation Commission, 22). In addition to these six examples of the style, five of which date from the 1920s, the eclectic R.W. Thompson House at 204 Salem Street recalls the style in its use of a broken-pediment front door surround and an entrance porch with an elliptical arched ceiling. Although the core of this house dates from ca.1910, it gained its present appearance from a substantial ca.1948 remodeling (Hoover Interview, January 16, 2006).
No buildings were erected in the district during the Depression years of the 1930s, and new construction did not resume until the end of the 1940s. This final period of building, which included two Late Gothic Revival churches, the 1957 church parsonage (already mentioned within the discussion of the Colonial Revival style), and a Ranch style house, brought the Salem Street Historic District to its present appearance.
St. Paul's Episcopal Church at 108 Salem Street was erected in 1949 with a parish hall addition in 1957-1958, while construction on Heidelberg Evangelical and Reformed Church at 118 Salem Street was begun in 1946 but not completed until 1955 (Sink and Matthews, 149, 155). Both have steep gable roofs, lancet-arched windows, and buttresses — all cardinal characteristics of the style — along with a variety of other individual features. Located at 300 Salem Street at the north end of the district, the Tom and Bernice Gordon House represents the last of the architectural styles found in the district. Built in 1954, it displays a combination of the Minimal Traditional style in its Colonial Revival-influenced detailing and the Ranch style in its low, elongated form (Melton Interview).
The Salem Street Historic District (local historic district, 2001) plays an important role in the architectural history of the city of Thomasville. Located along one of the primary and earliest roads leading into the city, it forms a compact grouping of houses that span nearly a century of Thomasville's development — from ca.1861 to 1957 — and exhibits good examples of a variety of architectural styles popular during that period. A few houses of the period can also be found scattered along Randolph Street — the continuation of Salem Street on the south side of the railroad — but these are not only much fewer in number but are also interspersed among buildings of a variety of other uses. Others, particularly early-twentieth century two-story frame houses and a group of large Bungalows, are found along Lexington Avenue. Bungalows, Foursquares, and Colonial Revival houses, many of them deteriorated, can be seen in the area bounded roughly by East Main Street, Fife Street, Memorial Park Drive, and Hobbs Avenue. Additional twentieth-century houses, exhibiting some of the same architectural styles as well as others not found in the Salem Street Historic District, can also be found elsewhere in Thomasville. However, unlike the houses in the Salem Street Historic District, they tend to be located in planned neighborhoods from the 1920s and later. The Colonial Drive School neighborhood (local historic district, 2005) has among its houses representatives of the Craftsman, Colonial Revival, and Tudor Revival styles. Elliott Drive, in particular, features nearly a block of Tudor Revival houses. Other examples of the Tudor Revival style and the smaller Period or English Cottage style can be found in the Kinneywood neighborhood. This neighborhood also contains a grouping of houses in the Mediterranean Revival and Spanish Eclectic styles as well as some good examples of mid-twentieth century Modernist dwellings. Ranch style houses are found throughout the Erwin Heights neighborhood, and the Wallcliff Park neighborhood contains a mix of Minimal Traditional style houses as well as modest Ranch and Modernist style dwellings (Comprehensive Architectural Survey Report, 11-12, 22-23).
While other good domestic examples of numerous popular architectural styles from the first half of the twentieth-century are found in Thomasville, the Salem Street Historic District holds a distinctive place in the city's architectural history. Developing along one of the primary and earliest roads leading into Thomasville, it evolved over a longer period of time than did any other residential area in the city and thus provides, through its intact and well-preserved group of buildings representing a variety of architectural styles from the mid-nineteenth-century through the mid-twentieth century, a valuable microcosm of Thomasville's history as seen through its architecture.
References
Capel, Wint. In Words and Pictures: Thomasville in the Nineteen Twenties. Chapel Hill: Cape Corp Press, 1999.
Edwards-Pitman Environmental, Inc. Thomasville, North Carolina: 2004 Comprehensive Architectural Survey Final Report.
Hoover, James B. (long-time resident of 121 Salem Street). Interviews with author, January 14 and 16, 2006.
Melton, Joyce S. (owner of 300 Salem Street). Interview with author, January 21, 2006.
Phillips, Laura A. W. National Register nomination for Thomasville Downtown Historic District, Thomasville, North Carolina, 2005.
Sanborn Map Company. Insurance maps for Thomasville, North Carolina, 1908, 1913, 1923, 1930, and 1948.
Sink, M[argaret] Jewell and Mary Green Matthews. Pathfinders Past and Present: A History of Davidson County North Carolina. High Point: Hall Printing Company, 1972.
Thomasville City Directory, 1928-1929, 1937, 1941-1942, 1949-1950, and 1956-1957.
Thomasville Historic Preservation Commission. Investigation Report for Salem Street Historic District, Thomasville, North Carolina, 2001.
‡ Laura A. W. Phillips, Architectural Historian for the City of Thomasville, Salem Street Historic District, Davidson County, NC, nomination document, 2006, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.
Street Names
Forsyth Street • Leonard Street • Route 109 • Salem Street
