Elizabeth City Historic District

Elizabeth City Historic District (ECHD)

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Welcome to the Elizabeth City Historic District portion of the Historic Elizabeth City web site. The Elizabeth City Historic District (“ECHD”) is Elizabeth City's only state-chartered (local) historic district. The ECHD is also one of Elizabeth City's 5 Historic Districts on the National Register of Historic Places.

This web site site is adapted from the Registration Form that was submitted to the National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior. The Registration Form is the document that nominates a property or district for inclusion on the National Register.

This particular part of the site is not a “virtual walking tour” of the district. The walking tours highlight only a relatively small number of the most significant historic properties in a district. This is more nearly a catalog of the entire district, since it includes every property in the district. The vast majority of the text in these pages is quoted verbatim from the National Register Nomination, which is in the public domain.

In addition to the catalog of resources, this site contains the two major narrative sections from the Nomination form: The Narrative Description, and the Narrative Statement of Significance. Both narratives contain numerous references to individual properties, and links to the catalog listings for each of the referenced properties have been added for the sake of convenience.

Navigating This Site

The world-wide web provides a nearly ideal setting for a document like the National Register Nomination. The power of hypertext and hypergraphics takes the almost dauntingly rich collection of information in the nomination and allows it to be presented in a very digestible form. Nevertheless, hypertext and hypergraphics are only a method of presentation. The intellectual content of these pages was provided by Ruth Little-Stokes, who researched the District and wrote the nomination.

If you work through the first four links in the navigation area to the left, you'll have essentially read the Nomination in something approximating its original form. However, the presence of original photographs adds considerably to the presentation. More importantly, the ability to follow links from the narrative to the illustrated catalog (and back) makes the points in the narratives much easier to grasp.

For quick reference to a particular resource in the catalog by street address, follow the “Street Address Index” link.

We hope you enjoy your visit to the Elizabeth City Historic District. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions, please use the link in the footer below to send an e-mail message to our webmaster.