Published: October 25, 2009 09:20 pm      

Preserving history

Pleasant Valley Historic District on National Register of Historic Places

David Loughridge’s homestead and farm has been in his family since just after the Civil War.

“I think it’s really important to (keep the property in the family),” Loughridge said. “I want to keep it going as long as we can.”

Loughridge’s home and farm in eastern Murray County north of Eton are part of the Pleasant Valley Historic District, which was recently placed on the National Register of Historic Places because it has remained an agricultural area since the 1830s.

Being placed on the register is “a reminder to us that it’s not just historic to us, but to the whole country,” said Tim Howard, Murray County’s historian. “It’s a recognition. The Pleasant Valley Historic District is on the same listing as Williamsburg, Va., for example. In a way, that’s saying it’s just as important.”

The district includes several hundred acres, but only four homes, Howard said. Those homes, which were all built in the 1800s, are the Bates-Loughridge House, the O’Neal House, an 1882 Victorian house owned by the Pannell and Fincher families and the C.C. Keith House.

“This is a rural historic district,” Howard said. “The focus is on the farm properties... It includes some agricultural buildings (such as barns and well houses) that go back to the 1800s. There are a couple of old cemeteries on those farms. That’s what makes the district so unique. It has a lot of acreage, but not a lot of buildings.”

The area is bounded by the CSX railroad, Old Federal Road, the old Crandall city limits and the land lot lines.

Loughridge’s home has been in his family since 1869 when his great-grandfather James George Alexander Loughridge bought it from Julius Bates.

Bates had built two rooms and a hallway between them in 1836. James George Alexander Loughridge added more rooms to the back and a second story. The home has been passed down through the family since.

Much of the house remains as it did when James George Alexander Loughridge built the additions, David Loughridge, and his wife Pam, said. There have been a few additions since, but the rooms still have the same hand-hewn molding, same railing on the staircase, the same front door and the same windows made of hand-blown glass, they said.

The home had running water before electricity was available in the area, David Loughridge said.

“There’s a spring a mile from the house,” he said. “They used a gravity flow system to pipe water from the spring to the homes. There were bathrooms in the house before other people had them.”

The farm now includes 500 acres. About 350 of those were part of the original farm, Loughridge said. He and his brother, Steve, raise cattle and chickens on the land.

The farm Emily Cogburn and her sister Martha Phillips Gordon own has been in their family since 1914.

“It basically hasn’t changed that much,” Cogburn said. “It’s not the same house, but the fields are the same.”

Howard said that is why the district was accepted to the register — it hasn’t changed much over the years.

“It’s a representation of a time in our nation’s history,” he said. “Some places are on the register because of the people who lived there. In our case, it’s not because of a famous person, but because it is representative of an era and the agricultural part of our heritage.”

Property owners choose to let their land be placed on the register.

Being placed on the register means property owners can receive tax incentives to help them “maintain the historical integrity of the area,” Howard said. “It does not limit what property owners can do with it. But federal money cannot be used to do anything. So, the government can’t condemn it to build a four-lane highway through there.”

If the property owners choose to make major changes that detract from the historical significance of the area, the district can be removed from the register, Howard said. For example, it can be removed if a property owner decides to develop a subdivision.

But, “the people in the district were so interested in getting on the register,” Howard said. “I’m glad to see it finally happened. They were all so involved.”