The Draper Historic District, covering 40 acres in Pulaski County, encompasses a concentration of historic resources that coalesced in the Draper Valley into a railroad depot community in the late 1800s. The village owes its existence to the 1886 establishment of the Draper Depot on the Norfolk and Western Railway’s Cripple Creek Extension, the bed of which survives as a recreational trail. The district’s earliest surviving building is the ca. 1887 Draper Mercantile, which for two decades was also the community’s largest building. Frame store buildings, a church, and houses in the Gothic Revival and Queen Anne styles date to the formative years of the community. Later resources of note include the 1911 Bank of Draper, several sophisticated Craftsman bungalows, and buildings associated with the town’s public school including a 1938 home economics building and 1949 community cannery. The construction of Ranch houses in the late 1960s rounds out the community’s architectural development; however, it is the bygone quality of the village that is an important component of Draper’s historical and architectural significance. It has encouraged the retention of historic buildings rather than their replacement with modern structures, and the redevelopment in 1987 of the Cripple Creek Line as the New River Trail State Park has stimulated a viable local economy.
[Due to a change in the contributing status of one property in the district at the time of listing in the National Register, the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places nominations are posted separately.]