Virginia Rambler: Road Trip! Staunton, VA

Your Virginia Rambler won a drawing for a weekend getaway to Staunton, Virginia (that's "STAN-ton," not "STAWN-ton"), a smallish city located in the Shenandoah Valley in central Virginia. It's just a few miles from Shenandoah National Park's Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway. This is farm country, and the area is dotted with farms and vineyards.

Here's a snapshot from the car as we drove through the valley: 

Stanton, which was first settled in 1732, is the birthplace of Woodrow Wilson and the home of Mary Baldwin College, the Virginia School of the Blind and Deaf, and the American Shakespeare Center. It's also the home of the Frontier Culture Museum, a co-sponsor of my 2015 weekend getaway along with WAMU-FM Bluegrass Country. It was named one of the 20 best small towns in America by Smithsonian magazine.

**Click any of the photos for a larger version.**

Downtown Staunton has a dazzling array of late-18th century and early-19th century buildings. Beverley Street (the city's Main Street) is stunning. Here are two views.

This 1911 building was designed in the Venetian Revival style. The white facade is made of terra cotta panels applied to the brick wall beneath.

19-21 E. Beverly St.

The taller of the two buildings below is the 1896 Masonic Temple. Designed by Chicago architect I.E.A Rose, the building has a mix of classical and medieval elements. Staunton Lodge No. 13 was headquartered here until 1986, at which time the Lodge had to sell the building because of extensive operating and maintenance expenses. One of its retail tenants, H. L. Lang Jewelers, has been a resident for more than 100 years. [1]

In the 1990s, the building was owned by a doctor, David S. Klein. For two years, Klein used a crew of homeless men to renovate the Masonic building and an adjacent one. Part of their job was stripping asbestos insulation. Unfortunately, the workers violated federal asbestos-disposal regulations; they did not saturate the asbestos with water, as required, and illegally stored the insulation inside trash bags that were later left on various Staunton streets, in an unauthorized landfill, in restaurant garbage bins and other places. Klein was fined and sentenced to prison time.

The 23,550-sq.-ft. building is once again for sale, for $889,000. According to the Realtor's brochure, the building includes two luxury apartments as well as office and retail space,. Two floors are occupied by Mary Baldwin College for its performing arts program.

Photo of the interior of the Masonic building, from a Realtor's brochure [3]:

Crown Jewelers (est. 1960) by day...

6 E. Beverly St.

... and by night.

Sticker on a storefront for Innovate LIVE, a 2015 conference billed as "a festive convergence of local innovators, visionaries, and entrepreneurs."

 

The Marquis Building, a Romanesque Revival structure, was designed by T. J. Collins, and housed his offices. Collins designed over 200 buildings in Staunton between 1891 and 1911. [4]

2-4 E. Beverly St.

Many of the commercial buildings have office and residential space above. If you peer in a side door, you may get a glimpse of a lobby:

This 1903 Beaux Arts-style building housed National Valley Bank, Staunton's oldest banking institution.

12-14 W. Beverly St.

As you might expect, Staunton is chock-full of antiques stores. One shop featured this beautiful old aluminum upright bass.

Another antiques store had a display case of Putnam Fadeless Dyes-Tints, the "Aristocrat of Color." Quite a few of the original envelopes full of powdered dye are included.

Yet another antiques store has this poster, advertising a party at the Stonewall Jackson Hotel, to benefit the fight against infantile paralysis. Probably circa late-1940s or early 1950s.

The interior of the Once Upon a Time Clock Shop:

25 W. Beverly St.

The 1890 Crowle Building. The stone lintel above the entrance has a basket weave carving. An 1896 flood washed away the entire rear portion of this building.

A better look at the basket-weave stone lintel, with a sign for the I.O.O.F. (International Order of Odd Fellows).

The Clock Tower was built in 1890 by S. W. Foulke and was remodeled by T. J. Collins around 1916. The building originally house the local YMCA, only the second of its kind in Virginia.

The clock was manufactured by the E. Howard Clock Company (Roxbury, MA). The company (founded in 1842) is still in business today. Some of the clock's components have been modernized, but many original parts are intact, including the bell. [5]

27-29 W. Beverley St.

The Clock Tower Building housed a Woolworth's from the 1930s to the early 1980s. [5]

 Side entrance (Boys Entrance) of the old YMCA in the Clock Tower building.

20-28 W. Beverley St. (Crowle Building)

Parts for a railroad trestle (?).

Former train station.

Old signage on brick wall.

Feline resident in a converted loft building.

The old White Star Mills building (address to come). This was the view from our room at the Stonewall Jackson Hotel. Note the freight train behind the mill building.

Great old sign at the Stonewall Jackson Hotel (opened in 1924).

Blackboard at Zynodoa, an acclaimed farm-to-fork restaurant. Worth a visit!

Night sky, viewed from Zynodoa.

View from a downtown parking garage.

Sticker advertising the Sacred Circle bookshop (now closed).

Back of the building housing the Blackfriars' Theater.

10 S. Market St.

Back of a building along Beverley Street.

Courthouse.

Scales of justice statue, atop the courthouse.

FRONTIER CULTURE MUSEUM
This living history museum has 10 original and replica buildings, including a 1600s English farm, a 1700s West African farm, and an 1820s American farmhouse. The Old world exhibits show rural life and culture in four homelands of early migrants to the American colon.es. The American exhibits show the life these colonists and their descendants created in the colonial back-country, how this life changed over more than a century, and how life in the United States today is shaped by its past.

Commonwealth Bluegrass Band, in concert during a roots music series at the Frontier Culture Museum.

The abandoned DeJarnette sanitarium (a dark chapter in Virginia history), across the road from the Frontier Culture Museum. It's being replaced by a very upscale condo development.

[1] Staunton Lodge No. 13. http://www.grandlodgeofvirginia.org/lodges/13/history.asp
[2] Jail time: Doctor used homeless to clear asbestos. http://www.readthehook.com/93628/newsbiz-jail-time-doctor-used-homeless-clear-asbestos
[3] http://x.lnimg.com/attachments/E13C25A3-E658-4F0D-AE44-FBABF21F425A.pdf
[4] T.J. Collins. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.J._Collins
[5] http://www.clocktowerhistoricstaunton.com/id32.html