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Summary of Identification and Evaluation Methods (4)This multiple property listing of “Historic and Architectural Resources of Elizabeth City, North Carolina, 1793 to 1943” is based in part on a comprehensive inventory of the city undertaken by Thomas R. Butchko in 1984-1985 under the auspices of the Survey and Planning Branch of the North Carolina Division of Archives and History (the State Historic Preservation Office) and the City of Elizabeth City. During the first phase of the thirteen-month project, over one thousand properties built before 1929 were recorded on survey forms, mapped, and photographed. Subsequent historical research then provided narrative descriptions and histories of each property or group of properties, utilizing extensive deed research, maps of the Sanborn Map Company, city directories, the nomination of the Elizabeth City National Register Historic District (prepared by State Historic Preservation Office staff in 1977), and various local historical and biographical materials. A comprehensive essay on the historical and architectural development of the city from settlement to the present was then written to provide a context for the narratives of the individual properties. For the final stage, a list of the individual and district resources eligible for the Register was compiled and placed on the state's National Register Study List by the State Professional Review Committee at the recommendation of the State Historic Preservation Office. The Study List is a mechanism employed by the state historic preservation office to evaluate the potential National Register eligibility of properties within the state. A similar study by Butchko in 1985-1986 of the architectural resources of surrounding Pasquotank County provided a means of assessing the city's resources in a broader context. In 1989, Butchko was retained by the local Museum of the Albemarle, the Northeastern Service Branch of the North Carolina Museum of History, to compile the city and county inventories into a book that was published in December 1989. During the publication phase, additional research was undertaken and many of Elizabeth City's historic resources of the period between 1930 and 1940 were assessed. |
The Present National Register project was undertaken by Butchko in 1992 under the auspices of the Survey and Planning Branch of the North Carolina Division of Archives and History and the City of Elizabeth City. The project utilized the files of the above-described city inventory, the publication, and the publication flies. These were supplemented by additional research, site visits, mapping, and photography. This multiple property documentation form groups the properties under five historic contexts that conform to the five major themes that best define the county and its properties: (1) the early period of development between the founding of both the city and the Dismal Swamp Canal in 1793 and the canal's first major improvement in the late 1810s; (2) the period of canal-derived growth and prosperity between 1820 and the Civil War; (3) the period of hardship and limited growth during the war and before the arrival of the railroad in 1881; (4) the tremendous development associated with the railroad during the last two decades of the nineteenth century; and (5) the continued growth during the twentieth century--in large part because of a major overhaul of the canal at the turn of the century and subsequent changes in transportation systems prior to World War II. The property types are organized chronologically by function, form, and style. The integrity requirements were based upon a knowledge of existing properties. | ||
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