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North Carolina Historic Sites
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North Carolina Historic Sites
North Carolina Historic Sites
Below is a list of North Carolina Historic Sites. Find detailed information on the Historic Site entries by clicking on their links.
Create an online North Carolina vacation itinerary
You can use WeGoPlaces.com to plan your North Carolina vacation itinerary! To begin, select from our list of North Carolina tourist attractions, activities, accommodations, events, restaurants or North Carolina vacation & visitor information entries. Click the "Add" button to add individual entries to your online North Carolina vacation itinerary.
Explore All Of North Carolina's Regions
You can find North Carolina tourist attractions and activities in all of North Carolina's regions: Asheville, Chapel Hill, Charlotte, Durham, Fayetteville, Greensboro, Lenoir, New Bern, Raleigh, Wilmington, Winston-Salem and Other.
Featured North Carolina Tourist Attractions and Activities
Please visit our North Carolina featured listings - Trans-Siberian Orchestra at RBC Center, Radio City Christmas Spectacular at Joel Coliseum, Phantom Of The Opera at Durham Performing Arts Center, Carolina Panthers at Bank of America Stadium, Monster Jam at Greensboro Coliseum and Monster Jam at RBC Center.
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Blandwood
National Historic Landmark-House Museum
Category: Greensboro Historic Site in North Carolina
Description of this Greensboro Attraction: Blandwood's story begins in 1795, predating the founding of the city of Greensboro, North Carolina, (1808,) when Charles Bland built a simple four-room, two-down, two-up Federal style clapboard farmhouse on a wooded hill in Guilford County. The two rooms on the first floor were laid out in the front parlor and hall model; he would call his home Blandwood.
The farmhouse was eventually expanded from four rooms to six rooms in 1822 by a subsequent owner, Henry Humphreys, a local businessman who opened the first steam powered textile mill in North Carolina, Mt. Hecla Cotton Mill. Humphreys would also use this opportunity to update the interior of the house, adding more ornate mouldings and mantels.
John Motley Morehead (1796-1866) purchased Blandwood in 1827 from Humphreys. Morehead had begun an illustrious political career in 1821 at the age of 25, when he was elected to the North Carolina House of Commons. His career culminated with his election to the state’s highest office, Governor, in 1840, when he served two two-year terms as North Carolina's governor from 1841-1845. As a Whig, he supported an ambitious program of internal improvements including a statewide rail and water transportation system, free public schools, more humane treatment of deaf and blind children, prisoners, and the mentally ill. These policies were very progressive for the Old North State, earning him the nickname, "Father of Modern North Carolina."
During this time, the Morehead family, which consisted of his wife, Ann Eliza Lindsey Morehead and their eight children, continued to live in the six room farmhouse that was Blandwood. Upon election to the governorship, Morehead felt the time was right to expand and glorify his home. In 1844, Morehead chose an architect he was familiar with, Alexander Jackson Davis, co-designer of the NC State Capital, to design a substantial addition to the farmhouse. This addition, completed in 1846, was built in the Italianate style and is the oldest surviving example in the United States.
Governor and Mrs. Morehead would live at Blandwood until their respective deaths in 1866 and 1868. At that time their youngest son, Eugene Morehead, was unmarried and living at home, subsequently, part of his inheritance was Blandwood. After living at Blandwood for a few years, Eugene married in 1874 and moved to Savannah, Georgia.
The last members of the Morehead family to live at Blandwood were Julius and Emma Morehead Gray who purchased the home from her brother. The Gray's lived at Blandwood until 1896, by which time, most of the family had passed away during a tuberculosis epidemic.
In 1896, Emma Gray’s remaining brothers and sisters were faced with the dilemma of what to do with Blandwood. They were approached by Col. William Osbourne, who wanted to rent Blandwood for use as a Keeley Institute, a franchise of hospitals to treat alcohol and drug addiction with the infamous “Gold Cure.” Initially renting Blandwood, the Keeley Institute would purchase Blandwood in January of 1906, while they maintained the architecture of the Davis addition to the main building, the two dependences were removed. The Keeley Institute operated at Blandwood until 1961.
By 1966, Blandwood stood empty and in danger of demolition. At this time Preservation Greensboro Incorporated formed to save and restore Blandwood. The restoration of the main building took ten years and Blandwood was opened to the public in 1976 as part of the country's bicentennial celebration. In 1984, after archaeological investigation of the property, the two depend
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Blandwood
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Chinqua Penn Plantation and Vineyard
Historic home & garden tours, wine tastings, weddings/events
Category: Reidsville Historic Site in North Carolina
Description of this North Carolina Attraction: Featured on A&E's America's Castles and acclaimed as an architectural American treasure, Chinqua Penn Plantation near Reidsville, North Carolina, was the home of Jeff and Betsy Penn. Mr. Penn was founder of the Penn Tobacco Company. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Plantation includes a 27 room English countryside mansion filled with elaborate furnishings from 30 countries, surrounded by 22 acres of beautiful gardens and historic landscape. The estate showcases the state's premier collection of eclectic decorative arts. Built in the 1920's by Thomas Jefferson Penn (1875-1946) and his wife, Beatrice Schoellkopf Penn (1881-1965), Chinqua Penn reflects their lifestyle of entertaining, traveling, and collecting art and furniture from around the world. The historic landscape evolved into an exotic horticulture collection, changing with each season. The Penn's love of the beautiful and artistic was manifested in the use of both native and imported plant material at Chinqua Penn. Chinqua Penn is named for the chinquapin, a dwarf chestnut tree. Once abundant here, most chinquapins were destroyed by the chestnut blight in the 1930's. Ownership was transferred to Calvin Phelps in 2006 and the house and gardens are now open to the public for tours.
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Duke Homestead State Historic Site
1852 home and farm of the Washington Duke family
Category: Durham Historic Site in North Carolina
Description of this Durham Attraction: At Duke Homestead, visitors can tour the early home, factories, and farm where Washington Duke first grew and processed tobacco. Duke's sons later founded The American Tobacco Company, the largest tobacco company in the world. The Dukes became one of the wealthiest families in the country at the turn of the 20th century and now lend their name to Duke University, Duke Energy, and the Duke Endowment.
Duke Homestead offers an orientation film twice an hour, an extensive tobacco museum, and guided tours of the surviving historical structures on the grounds. Among these structures are early Bright Leaf tobacco barns, Washington Duke's first and third factories, and his 1852 homestead.
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Duke Homestead State Historic Site
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Fort Defiance
18th century home with 300 original furnishings and items.
Category: Lenoir Historic Site in North Carolina
Description of this Lenoir Attraction: Located in the Happy Valley community on highway 268, General William Lenoir built his home between 1788 and 1792 on the former site of the fort, which was designed to protect settlers from the early Native Americans in the area. The home of William Lenoir has been fully restored to its late eighteenth, early nineteenth century grandeur and features more than 300 original furnishings.
General Lenoir became famous as a captain at the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780. William Lenoir served as major general of the state militia, president of the Council of State, president for the first two years of the Board of Trustees of the University of North Carolina, justice of the peace, register, surveyor, chairman of the county court, and clerk of superior court for Wilkes County. The City of Lenoir, the county of Lenoir, and Lenoir Hall at the University of North Carolina are named after General Lenoir.
Custom guided tours are available to visitors. Fort Defiance is home to several unique splendors, such as a 200-year-old English boxwood garden, and a 200-year-old hybrid Chestnut tree, and the oldest Beech tree in North Carolina.
Hours of Operation: April – October (Thurs. – Sat., 10 am – 5 pm and Sun 1 pm – 5 pm)
November – March (Weekends only or by appointment) Call for hours. For more information, call Fort Defiance at 828-758-1671.
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Fort Defiance
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North Carolina Travel Articles
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