PRESERVING AN OLD BUILDING\ THE CASWELL MOTOR BUILDING, CONSTRUCTED IN 1894, IS A KEY PART OF YANCEYVILLE'S HISTORIC COURTHOUSE SQUARE.
BY MEREDITH BARKLEY Staff Writer Nov 3, 2001 Updated Jan 25, 2015 (Greensboro News & Record)
The long struggle to save a key building on Yanceyville's historic courthouse square may soon be over.
Preservation North Carolina, a nonprofit organization that seeks to protect the state's important buildings, needs only $5,500 to finish demolishing a section added to the rear of the old Caswell Motor building during the 1930s. Once finished, the 1894 building can be handed over to a nonprofit organization - as yet unidentified - which will likely use it as offices. Preservation officials say that organization will restore the old building in keeping with its surroundings.
Preservation North Carolina officials had worked since 1997 to find a buyer for the property. Although the building attracted a lot of interest, no one wanted pay the $100,000 it would cost to demolish the rear section.
That all changed in August when the rear of that building, already unstable from years of neglect, caved in. That cut demolition costs to $10,500.
Fidelity Bank, which recently opened a Yanceyville office, contributed $5,000 to the effort. Now the preservation group is seeking a donor for the rest.
Preservation North Carolina considers the building important because it is a key part of the landscape. It is perhaps the oldest commercial structure on the courthouse square, a National Register Historic District.
"That old building sits on the corner of the courthouse square," said Angela Greenfield, director of marketing for Preservation North Carolina. "If it's lost, your square is gone."
The old building has had a colorful history. At various times it housed a Masonic lodge, a telephone office, a drug store, government offices, a retail store and a Ford dealership.
Preservation North Carolina and Sallie Anderson, a Yanceyville historian and editor of the Caswell County Historical Association's newsletter, pieced together this history:
The Clinton Masonic Lodge, the original owners of the building, purchased the land in 1856 from William Brown, believed to have been son of Bedford Brown, U.S. Senator from North Carolina from the 1820s to 1840. The Browns had extensive real estate holdings in the Yanceyville area.
The lodge erected a building on the site, but it apparently burned during the 1880s. So the lodge put up the current structure in 1894.
Three years later, Archie Long, whose family also owned a lot of property around town, purchased the building at auction for $1,600.
In 1906, Long sold the property to H. W. Perry for $1,200. Perry, a pharmacist, opened a drug story in the building.
In 1917, Crowell Auto Company bought the property for $3,000 and opened a Ford dealership. John Gunn, one of Crowell's employees, bought the building and dealership during the 1930s.
Gunn was apparently responsible for the addition that workers are now dismantling and for changing the name to Caswell Motor Co. It more than doubled the building's space to 12,000 square feet.
Gunn operated the dealership until retiring sometime in the 1960s or 1970s. The dealership continued at that location for several years, but it had become a retail store before closing for good during the 1980s.
Preservation North Carolina hopes to complete the demolition project and transfer the property by year's end. The organization adds covenants to the deed that say the exterior can't be changed. The covenants remain with the property forever.
The historic district designation provides state and federal tax credits for rehabilitation costs.
"It could be a sweetheart," said Myrick Howard, Preservation North Carolina's president. "It once was." Contact Meredith Barkley at 373-7091 or mbarkley@news-record.com
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