The Gainesboro Residential Historic District [&daffer;] contains a significant collection of late nineteenth and early twentieth century dwellings. The district's Queen Anne, Folk Victorian, Bungalow, and Colonial Revival plans and designs are representative of Gainesboro's growth and development at the turn of the century. The majority of the properties have been well preserved and there are few post-1951 properties. The Gainesboro Residential Historic District consists of a significant grouping of dwellings retaining their historic sense of time and place.
The Gainesboro Residential Historic District extends along Cox, Minor, and N. Murray streets, and Dixie Avenue in the town of Gainesboro, Tennessee. Gainesboro is located along the Cumberland River approximately sixty miles northeast of Nashville and has an estimated population of 1,000 residents. The community remains geographically compact, largely due to its valley location in the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains. The hilly terrain and steep slopes surrounding the town have invited little outward growth. The Granville Highway (State Route 53) provides access to the town from the west. This road parallels nearby Doe Creek and eventually becomes Hull Avenue when it enters the town. The district contains twenty dwellings, of which seventeen are considered contributing to the character of the district. The district includes two contributing outbuildings and five non-contributing outbuildings. These outbuildings consist primarily of garages and storage sheds. In addition, the district contains nine contributing structures, which consist of original stone retaining walls and iron fences.
The Gainesboro Residential Historic District lies directly north of the town's historic commercial area. Cox Street runs parallel to Hull Avenue in an east-west direction and is intersected by Union Street, which divides the street into West Cox and East Cox. The Gainesboro Residential Historic District includes the 100, 200, and 300 blocks of East Cox Street and the 100 and 200 blocks of West Cox Street. The district also takes in two houses on Dixie Avenue, a single dwelling on Minor Street, and includes the 200 and 300 blocks of Murray Street, which extends north off of Hull Avenue.
The majority of properties within the Gainesboro Residential Historic District are dwellings constructed between ca. 1880 and ca. 1920, during the height of the town's steamboat era. Founded to serve as the seat of Jackson County, Gainesboro was built on a parcel of land donated by county resident David Cox. The town was platted and lots were laid out in 1819. Local tradition places the earliest residential settlement on the eastern side of town, about a mile and a half from the Roaring River, along what is now Murray Street. As the population grew throughout the nineteenth century, the town grew to the west and south. Little remains of the community's original early nineteenth-century architecture. 1 Most of the town's historic architecture, including the Gainesboro Residential Historic District, documents the growth and development associated with the steamboat trade of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The district's oldest remaining residence, which is also the oldest in the community, is the E.O. Smith House located at 204 North Murray Street. (Photo No. 7) This Italianate dwelling was constructed ca. 1860 and retains much of its architectural integrity. The vast majority of homes built along Murray and Cox streets during this time were one-and-one-half or two-story frame houses built in Folk Victorian forms with Queen Anne or Italianate detailing. The most common of these is the gabled ell form, which features a projecting gabled bay on the main fa?ade, decorative porches, and one or more primary entrances. Common decorative features include cornice brackets, vergeboard, and milled porch posts and railings. One of the district's oldest dwellings, the James McDearman House, located at 204 Dixie Avenue, was constructed in the gabled ell form ca. 1880. (Photo No. 12) This house features eave brackets and a partial width porch with milled columns and a milled railing. The J. Mack Draper House at 201 West Cox Street and the William M. Gailbreath House at 218 East Cox Street (Photo No. 13) are also representative of the gabled ell design. The dwellings were constructed ca. 1895 and ca. 1900 respectively and both retain milled porch columns, milled or cutout panels, and spindled friezes. The central passage plan I-House, also typical of the late nineteenth century, is another form of Folk Victorian architecture present in the Gainesboro Residential Historic District. This form generally features a simple two-story horizontal plan with varying degrees of Victorian era detail. The James Cox House, located at 204 West Cox Street, is representative of this form, and retains an original second-story balcony with a milled railing on the facade and a one- story shed roof porch with original milled columns on the side. (Photo No. 9) Bungalow style homes began to appear in Gainesboro during the first two decades of the twentieth century. This type of dwelling typically displays a horizontal form with wide eaves, a large front porch, and a gable roof. The Bailey Butler House at 300 Dixie Avenue is the district's only example of this type of dwelling. It retains its original front porch with square brick columns, multi-light sidelights, transom, and glass and wood doors. Construction within the district slowed considerably after the 1920s. As railroads and highways supplanted the steamboat business, Gainesboro's economic boom came to an end. Of the few houses built after 1930, most reflect the influence of the Colonial Revival style, which marked a return to symmetrical forms and the use of classical orders and detailing. The Meadows Montgomery House at 200 West Cox Street, for example, has an original partial width shed porch with fluted Doric motif columns and an original glass and wood paneled door with an elliptical glass light. (Photo No. 18) This house has a construction date of 1951 and is therefore one of the newest houses in the district. Some older homes in the district feature Colonial Revival additions or alterations. The James Cox House at 204 West Cox Street features pedimented window cornices and a ca. 1930 two-story Colonial Revival influenced portico with square concrete and stucco columns. (Photo No. 9) A few of the dwellings have associated outbuildings dating from ca. 1900 or earlier that add to the character of the district. One of these is an original frame smokehouse associated with the ca. 1880 dwelling at 204 Dixie Avenue. A ca. 1900 frame barn is also located at the rear of the Meadows Montgomery House at 200 West Cox Street. A significant number of the houses also have original stone retaining walls or cast iron fences, which are considered contributing structures.
Only three post-1951 dwellings have been constructed within the district.
† Adapted from: Stacy Weber and Philip Thomason, Thomason and Associates, Gainesboro Residential Historic District, 2001, nomination document, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C., accessed April, 2025.
Street Names
Cox Street East • Cox Street West • Dixie Avenue • Minor Street • Murray Street North