Downtown Sanford Historic District is a national

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...

located at Sanford,

Lee County, North Carolina Lee County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 63,285. The county seat is Sanford. It was established on March 6, 1907, from parts of Chatham and Moore counties, and named for G ...

. It encompasses 53 contributing buildings in the

central business district A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...

of Sanford. The district includes notable examples of

Colonial Revival The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture. The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the archi ...

Tudor Revival Tudor Revival architecture (also known as mock Tudor in the UK) first manifested itself in domestic architecture in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th century. Based on revival of aspects that were perceived as Tudor architecture ...

and

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style architecture, with buildings largely dated between about 1895 to 1930. Located in the district are the separately listed

Railroad House Railroad House is a historic home located at Sanford, Lee County, North Carolina. It was built in 1872, and is a -story, three-bay, board-and-batten, Gothic Revival style frame cottage. The gable roof has wide overhanging eaves and "rafter brack ...

and Temple Theatre. Other notable buildings include the Sanford Buggy Company (c. 1908), McCracken Building (c. 1910), Passenger Depot (c. 1900), City Hall (c. 1909), Coca-Cola Bottling Company (c. 1908), Masonic Lodge (c. 1924), Makepeace Building (1924), Wilrick Hotel (1925), Bowers Building (c. 1925), Cole Pontiac Building (c. 1925), Hubbards Shoe Store (1926), Carolina Hotel (1930), and former U. S. Post Office (c. 1935). It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1985, with a boundary change in 2021.

References

Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in North Carolina Colonial Revival architecture in North Carolina Tudor Revival architecture in North Carolina Art Deco architecture in North Carolina Buildings and structures in Lee County, North Carolina National Register of Historic Places in Lee County, North Carolina {{LeeCountyNC-NRHP-stub