Washington Park
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Information from the National Register of Historic Places:
Architects | Development Companies | Residents | History of Winston-Salem | Ludlow's Plan | The Park | Streetcars
Washington Park is steeped in history. When the Moravians settled Salem in 1766, the steep hills south of Salem Creek were used for hunting. In the late 1880s, when it became fashionable to build homes on elevated land, the bluffs of Washington Park overlooking Salem from the south were considered a desirable location. F. M. Simmons, who later became a U. S. senator from North Carolina, came to Winston-Salem in the late 1880s to help establish the Winston-Salem Land Investment Company. By 1892 a development plan drawn by Jacob Lott Ludlow was officially registered in county records.
In 1791 George Washington visited Salem, traveling north from Salisbury, through what would become over a century later a planned suburb and a dedicated green space aptly named Washington Park. Designed by Jacob Lott Ludlow in 1891 and developed largely after 1900, the neighborhood known today as Washington Park is one of North Carolina's finest examples of an early twentieth century streetcar suburb.
Once a hilly hunting ground for the Moravian settlers of Salem, Washington Park is now a quiet, tree-shaded neighborhood with broad lawns and a wide variety of architectural styles from the early twentieth century. It is significant in the history of Winston-Salem as one of the early residential suburbs developed as a result of the streetcar, reflecting the city's development from a small business center to one of the leading manufacturing centers of the South, and contains the residences of many of Winston and Salem's most prominent leaders of the period. The district further represents the city's increasingly urban character and the growing numbers of individuals in middle and upper income brackets and as such is a symbol of the affluence of the boom times Winston-Salem enjoyed in the early decades of the twentieth century. In the 1920s Winston-Salem became the largest city between Atlanta and Washington; the increasing sophistication and prosperity of Winston-Salem's residents continued throughout Washington Park's period of significance and until the 1960s.
The neighborhood retains to an extraordinary degree its original layout, a high proportion of intact buildings erected during the period of significance, important early landscape features, and the particular elements identifying Washington Park as a residential neighborhood of the early twentieth century, including spatial arrangements, building materials, and special unifying features such as stone walls and steps. Within the district is a distinguished collection of residences constructed between the 1890s and World War II, with representative examples of both vernacular and stylish Victorian, Queen Anne, Shingle, Neo-classical Revival, Craftsman, Colonial Revival, Moravian Revival and Tudor Revival style domestic architecture.
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