Up the hill from the once bustling commercial core of the Montgomery County seat town of Christiansburg, the residential area that makes up the East Main Street Historic District preserves an air of genteel decorum, one appropriate for this fashionable old quarter. The shady neighborhood is marked principally by free-standing houses from the turn of the 20th century onward, although two early dwellings: the antebellum Barnett-Montague House, and the log Lane-Moore House, provide historic perspective. The former, an early-19th-century hall-parlor house, has a log kitchen wing. Other dwellings include typical small-town examples of the Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, and Craftsman styles. Pepper Street is lined with brick bungalows. Accenting the East Main Street Historic District are three institutional buildings: the Christiansburg Municipal Building, the former Christiansburg High School, and the former Christiansburg Elementary School, the latter two dating from the early-20th century.

East Main Street Historic District was listed in the registers under the Prehistoric and Historic Resources of Montgomery County MPD.