34. Rural Life in the Back Creek Valley
by D. W. Lewes and K. Houston
Documentation of the Harris House (080-0294), Roanoke County, Virginia
2004 72 pp. 64 figs. 1 table
Although hall-parlor floor plans are typically associated with the earliest Euro-American vernacular architecture, this 1876 example is a reminder of the persistence of earlier architectural forms in rural areas. An 1890s addition expanded the Harris House but barely altered the original section. Owned by the same family for more than 125 years, the house remained virtually unchanged until it was dismantled in the late 1990s. In this popular-format report, documentation of intact architectural fabric and a collection of agricultural outbuildings is combined with an examination of traditional lifeways in a rural neighborhood of the Back Creek Valley.
Download part 1 of the report and part 2 of the report (pdf)
