Fayetteville Historic District is located in

Fayetteville, Texas Fayetteville is a city in Fayette County, Texas, United States. The population was 246 at the 2020 census. History The town is located in an area that was originally granted to Alex Thompson and George Cumberland. Fayetteville's first immigra ...

. The small town of Fayetteville is in rural south east central

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

midway between

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

and

Austin Austin refers to: Common meanings * Austin, Texas, United States, a city * Austin (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin (surname), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin Motor Company, a British car manufac ...

. The oldest extant building in the district was constructed in 1853. The

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

represents most of the development within town boundaries as indicated by street signs, the boundaries have been drawn to exclude some areas in town occupied primarily by construction from after 1958. The area of the district is and includes 345 properties considered historical and largely intact. An additional 137 properties within district boundaries are not considered for contribution to the historic status of the district. It was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

(NRHP) on July 10, 2008.

Fayetteville

Fayetteville is 12 miles from the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

LaGrange Joseph-Louis Lagrange (born Giuseppe Luigi Lagrangiablackland prairie of south central Texas characterized by soft rolling hills and

arable land Arable land (from the , "able to be ploughed") is any land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops.''Oxford English Dictionary'', "arable, ''adj''. and ''n.''" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2013. Alternatively, for the purposes of a ...

. Development is concentrated in a compact area and is surrounded by farmland. The boundary between the northeast–southeast

grid plan In urban planning, the grid plan, grid street plan, or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid. Two inherent characteristics of the grid plan, frequent intersections and orthogon ...

of the town and the open farms is distinct and characteristic of the

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

farmers who have been predominant in the area since the mid 19th century. They followed early

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

settlers. Development after 1850, when the town was

plat In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Survey System, Public Lands Surveys to ...

ted, displaced or replaced all the previous improvements.

Town plan

That original plat was 28 blocks with a central

town square A town square (or public square, urban square, city square or simply square), also called a plaza or piazza, is an open public space commonly found in the heart of a traditional town or city, and which is used for community gatherings. Relat ...

. the town, with a population of 261, essentially still reflects that platting and its relation to the surrounding farmland. The town square is the central ordinal for directional prefixes (N, S, E, W) and numbering (beginning with hundreds) of street names and addresses. Town streets are uncurbed and typically wide and have at grade drains with metal grills flowing into an underground

storm sewer A storm drain, storm sewer (United Kingdom, United States, U.S. and Canada), highway drain, surface water drain/sewer (United Kingdom), or stormwater drain (Australia and New Zealand) is infrastructure designed to Drainage, drain excess rain an ...

system. A former

precinct Precinct may refer to: * An electoral precinct * A police precinct * A religious precinct * A shopping arcade or shopping mall ** A Pedestrian zone Places * A neighborhood, in Australia * A unit of public housing in Singapore * A former elector ...

courthouse, sits in the town square with extra wide curbed streets on its borders as specified in the original 1850 plat. Bounded by Main, Washington, Live Oak and Fayette streets the town square is the focus of commercial development. The remainder of the town is primarily residential. Typical commercial construction is wood frame block buildings many featuring false front parapets and awnings. Residential construction is typically modest single family homes on generous lots.

1880 courthouse

The Fayette County Precinct No. 2 Courthouse, built in 1880 is wood-frame construction with horizontal wood

siding Siding may refer to: * Siding (construction), the outer covering or cladding of a house * Siding (rail) In rail terminology, a siding is a low-speed track section distinct from a running line or through route such as a main line, branch lin ...

and has a simple two story square plan. The south elevation is the facade with simple wood stairs and solid wood panel double doors. Windows are symmetrically placed with three

bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

on the north and south, and two on the east and west. Construction of the

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literatur ...

style building was funded by in contributions from the citizens of Fayetteville and an additional in tax funds from the County Commissioners' Court. Funding for painting the building was raised by holding a ball. A calaboose (holding jail) with two

cells Cell most often refers to: * Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life * Cellphone, a phone connected to a cellular network * Clandestine cell, a penetration-resistant form of a secret or outlawed organization * Electrochemical cell, a d ...

was finished in 1887. A clock tower, financed by a ladies club, was added in 1934 in the center of the

hipped roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downward to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope, with variants including tented roofs and others. Thus, a hipped roof has no gables or other vertical sides ...

. It is no longer used as a courthouse. Precinct courthouses were quite rare in early Texas and this one was listed as an RTHL in 1997. The other government building, the post office, is not considered historical, dating from the late 1960s.

Town square and commercial development

The town square has five buildings with coursed

pressed tin A tin ceiling is an architectural element, consisting of a ceiling finished with tinplate with designs pressed into them, that was very popular in Victorian buildings in North America in the late 19th and early 20th century. They were also popu ...

siding in a rough

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

finish as well as several masonry buildings on the east built to replace wood structures lost to fire in 1893. These are in contrast to the one and two part block wood frame commercial buildings common to the concentrated town center focused tightly on the

. There are 25 one part block buildings typically featuring a false front

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an upward extension of a wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/brea ...

wall obscuring a front

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

roof giving an impression of greater height to these one story buildings. These false front parapets some stepped and some flat topped are repeated by many buildings facing the town square and throughout the commercial area. Many have awnings extending over the sidewalk suspended from the facade wall or supported by columns, some with signage on a parapet topping the canopy. The facade typically featured a central entrance flanked by windows. The seven two part commercial block buildings in the district are two stories. Two of them, both fronting the town square featured a store on the first floor and residences for the owner above. They are the Sarrazin Store and Steve's Corner Store. The standard two part block consists of commercial space with a storefront on the first floor and office, storage or residential space upstairs. Most in Fayetteville had canopies or roofs extending over the sidewalk. A good example of the two part block form is the Zapp Building one of the town's few high–style commercial buildings. The red brick building with buff brick accents and a corner entry was built in 1900 to replace an earlier structure lost to fire. It operates as an inn and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.

Photo gallery

References

External links

* * ** * {{Portal bar, Architecture, National Register of Historic Places, Texas Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Texas Fayette County, Texas National Register of Historic Places in Fayette County, Texas