Historic Sites

Nash Street Historic District

The Nash Street Historic District is locally significant to Starkville and Oktibbeha County because, as the earliest and most intact of the city's twentieth-century suburban subdivisions, it represents and embodies the transformation of Starkville from a small, agriculturally-oriented trading center to a modern, university-oriented city in response to the substantial growth of Mississippi A&M College in the 1930s. The district is also locally significant as the largest and most intact concentration of substantial 1930s residential architecture in the county. The period of significant extends from 1932, the year the first new house was built, until 1940, the year the last pre-war house was erected.

The historic district is Starkville's first subdivision, the first of 61 subdivisions registered at the Courthouse from 1934-1974. The Nash Street Historic District began the shift to suburban living and development in Starkville. Starkville's first housing was previously clustered around the businesses and industry in the central business district. The Greensboro neighborhood is adjacent to the west side of the CBD and the Overstreet neighborhood is adjacent to the south side of the CBD. The Nash Street Subdivision is located halfway between the university and the CBD. Designed by surveyor John H. Wellborne in 1913 and known as the "College Addition," the land development was originally the Yeager Property and included 11 lots east of Nash Street along College Drive. It wasn't until the early 1930s, when the Nash Street lots were property of the East End Land and Improvement Company (Mr. R.K. Weir-President, and Mr. H.A. Beatie- Secretary), that lots were purchased , and houses built. This coincided with growth of the College brought about by Public Works Administration stimulus. Being the city's first subdivision, the neighborhood became the local model for developing suburban subdivisions which included large lots, paved streets with curbs and gutters, and sidewalks with a planting space between the sidewalk and the curb. Those who developed this first Starkville subdivision created the local model for community residential site planning by developing their lots whereby significant trees were retained as part of the beauty of the site, and utility, providing shade in the hot Mississippi summers. The fashionable Nash Street subdivision became known as the "Garden District" of Starkville (Frank Blakeney, "College View: A Neighborhood in Search of Itself." History 3383, Historiography and Historical Method, 1985).

The Nash Street Historic District is also locally significant for its architecture with Tudor Revival, Colonial Revival, and Craftsman styles contributing to its identifiable character. The building styles in the district reflect the architectural tastes of the university administrators, professors, and successful business owners who built in the historic district. The district is significant because it is the only architecturally significant concentration of 1930s domestic housing remaining in Starkville. Located along the street are some of Starkville's best examples of 1930s domestic architecture, reflecting Tudor Revival, Colonial Revival, and Craftsman style architectural details. Local a with architect Thomas S. Johnston who also worked with renovating university buildings as a result of PWA funds, designed six of the houses along North Nash Street within the Historic District.

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