The Glade Spring Commercial Historic District comprises the commercial core of Glade Spring, a town of approximately 1,500 people located just north of Interstate 81 in Washington County, Virginia. The transportation corridors of the Great Valley of Virginia have played an important role throughout the community‘s history. Glade Spring is representative of small commercial towns in the Great Valley that thrived along the railroad during its heyday from the mid-nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century. By the 1950s, these towns began to suffer decline due to loss of passenger service on trains through the area and competition for freight from large trucks moving along improved roads and interstate highways. The downtown retains many of the physical vestiges of this history, including its historic commercial building inventory, orientation toward the extant railroad corridor, and street layout. Examples of the period‘s range of commercial architecture exhibit a variety of facades and some elaborate masonry techniques.
The Glade Spring Commercial Historic District was listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register in March 2013 and on the National Register of Historic Places in May 2015. The National Register nomination was co-authored by David Lewes of the William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research and Mary Ruffin Hanbury of Hanbury Preservation Consulting. The nomination can be found here https://www.nps.gov/nr/feature/places/pdfs/13000345.pdf