Three listings comprising over 3,000 properties were newly added to the National Register of Historic Places in June 2021. As the state historic preservation office (SHPO), the Historic Preservation Division (HPD), housed in the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, administers the National Register of Historic Places program in Georgia.
Nominations for these listings are in line with HPD’s mission of promoting the preservation and use of historic places for a better Georgia. By sharing the importance of these listings, HPD hopes to encourage the preservation of historic properties through public awareness and an appreciation of the impactful roles they play in our social and economic lives.
The newly listed resources are:
- Winnwood Apartments; Atlanta, Fulton County: Built in 1931, Winnwood Apartments is a two-story, 24-unit garden apartment building with an open, deep U-shaped footprint around a central courtyard and is an example of the apartment development that proliferated in Atlanta during the 1920s and early 1930s. The building exhibits a multitude of characteristic features of the garden apartment type, with its setback from the street, enclosed space (called a “garden” or “courtyard”), two-story height, symmetrical layout of units, lack of porches, and use of brick cladding. The Georgian Revival-style apartment building was built by Atlanta builder/developer H. W. Nicholes and Son, a prominent father and son firm that achieved a reputation for high quality work in Atlanta’s most desirable neighborhoods. Apartments are a mixture of studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom units and retain historic materials and finishes including plaster walls and ceilings, wood floors, paneled doors, window and door surrounds, moldings and baseboards, as well as built-in cabinets, hardware, and radiators. Behind the building is a one-story, brick and wood multi-stall garage, constructed at the same time as the apartments. The intact landscape and hardscape of the courtyard consists of a concrete sidewalk to each primary entrance, trimmed hedges along the foundation and in the courtyard, and plantings such as boxwood, nandina, and dogwood trees.
Winnwood Apartments was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on April 15, 2021. The nomination was sponsored by the property owner and the nomination materials were prepared by Ray, Ellis & LaBrie Consulting.
- John and Effie McDaniel House; Thomaston, Upson County: The Neoclassical Revival-style house, located near the county courthouse and downtown square, was built in c.1920 and has been attributed to architect Frank P. Milburn. The Neoclassical Revival style, which drew on the Early Classical Revival and Greek Revival styles of the early19th century, was popular throughout Georgia and the United States from the 1890s through the 1930s. The symmetrical red brick house with painted white detailing demonstrates many of the character-defining features of the Neoclassical Revival style including: classical symmetry; classical fenestration; dentil cornices; a dominant full-height front entry portico with classical columns; a triangular pediment over the portico; a single-story full-façade porch; a main entrance with fanlight and sidelights; a balustrade; a porte-cochere; and paired windows with multiple panes. Other architectural details include a low-pitched pyramidal roof with original Ludowici clay red barrel roof tiles, a small second-story balcony, and four brick chimneys. The house retains many original features including wood flooring, windows, doors, and hardware. In addition, the property features a one-story detached garage, also built c.1920 in a similar fashion to the house.
The John and Effie McDaniel House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on June 24, 2021. The nomination was sponsored by the property owner, and nomination materials were prepared by consultants Johnnie and James Gaskill.
- East Atlanta Historic District; Atlanta, DeKalb County: The East Atlanta Historic District is a large and diverse neighborhood of single-family houses, apartments, commercial buildings, schools, churches, gas stations, a park, and a cemetery that straddles the eastern boundary of the city of Atlanta, and the western boundary of unincorporated DeKalb County. Its diverse historic resources and piecemeal development patterns reflect the area’s evolution from a rural area, to an Atlanta streetcar suburb, to an urban automobile-oriented neighborhood. The East Atlanta Historic District was one of Dekalb County and Atlanta’s primary commercial nodes during the early- to mid-20th century. The district embodies the trends and changes that shaped and defined Dekalb County and Atlanta’s development during the late-19th and early- to mid-20th centuries, including economic and political forces such as transportation improvements, urban consolidation, and integration leading to demographic shifts in the 1960s.
In the late-19th century, East Atlanta was a sparsely populated agricultural area outside of the city center. A streetcar line began operation on Moreland Avenue in 1883, and the city of Atlanta annexed much of East Atlanta by 1927. After World War II, a housing boom resulted in the development of the southern half of the district, and construction of Interstate 20 through the area’s northernmost portion in the 1950s and 1960s altered the neighborhood’s boundaries. East Atlanta experienced racial tensions and significant demographic changes in the 1960s and 1970s after the integration of neighborhood schools.
Architecture in the East Atlanta Historic District represents an intact collection of residential, commercial, and community landmark buildings, featuring various architectural types and styles popular in Georgia from the late-19th through the mid-20th centuries. Community landmarks include the former East Atlanta Bank, the Madison Theatre, the former East Atlanta Library, the East Atlanta Post Office, the former Peterson Elementary, the former East Atlanta High School, and several churches. Contributing sites in the district include Sylvester Cemetery and Brownwood Park.
East Atlanta Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on June 25, 2021. The nomination was sponsored by the East Atlanta Community Association, and the nomination materials were prepared by Georgia State University graduate students in Heritage Preservation and community volunteers.
