Wasena 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 in the Wasena neighborhood of

Roanoke, Virginia Roanoke ( ) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Virginia. At the 2020 census, the population was 100,011, making it the 8th most populous city in the Commonwealth of Virginia and the largest city in Virginia west of Richmond. It is lo ...

. It encompasses 574 contributing buildings, 1 contributing site, 3 contributing structures, and 3 contributing objects. It is a primarily residential district with single-family dwellings. Also in the district are a few commercial buildings, several industrial buildings, a park along the river and the Wasena Bridge.

History

The district began its development with George Howbert's sale of his house and farmland to the Wasena Land Company in 1910. At the time the only connection to the developed portion of the city was a wooden bridge spanning the

Roanoke River The Roanoke River ( ) runs long through southern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina in the United States. A major river of the southeastern United States, it drains a largely rural area of the coastal plain from the eastern edge of the App ...

; that bridge was reinforced with a steel frame concurrent to the neighborhood being graded and platted (it would be 1939 before the existing span was completed). The oldest structure in the district is the former Howbert home, located at 918 Howbert Avenue and dating to about 1900. The majority of the houses in the district date to the 1920s, though some contributing structures were built as late as the 1960s. The

American Craftsman American Craftsman is an American domestic architectural style, inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement, which included interior design, landscape design, applied arts, and decorative arts, beginning in the last years of the 19th century. Its ...

-style

bungalow A bungalow is a small house or cottage that is either single-story or has a second story built into a sloping roof (usually with dormer windows), and may be surrounded by wide verandas. The first house in England that was classified as a b ...

is the dominant style and form followed by the

American Foursquare The American Foursquare or American Four Square is an American house style popular from the mid-1890s to the late 1930s. A reaction to the ornate and mass-produced elements of the Victorian architecture, Victorian and other Revival styles popul ...

(including

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 ...

and

Prairie style Prairie School is a late 19th- and early 20th-century architectural style, most common in the Midwestern United States. The style is usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hip roof, hipped roofs with broad Overhang (architecture), ove ...

) and the Ranch style. A small commercial district exists in the neighborhood just south of the Wasena Bridge consisting of several one-story buildings. That commercial area has seen significant revitalization in the 21st century, as has a former industrial zone in the northeast portion of the historic district.Adams, Mason. "Wasena's renaissance is progressing steadily." ''Roanoke Times, The (VA)'', December 28, 2012: A7. That portion also contains a replica of a train station that once held the

Virginia Museum of Transportation The Virginia Museum of Transportation is a museum devoted to the topic of transportation located in Downtown Roanoke, Virginia, US. children under two years do not to buy tickets and students can get a discounted $10.5 ticket. History The Virg ...

until severe flooding in 1985 forced its closure.Holland, Tiffany. "Region businesses prep like it's 1985." ''Roanoke Times, The (VA)'', October 2, 2015: A7. The building was renovated in 2015 and holds a restaurant. The district 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 2012.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in Virginia Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia Colonial Revival architecture in Virginia Buildings and structures in Roanoke, Virginia National Register of Historic Places in Roanoke, Virginia