Located within New River Trail State Park in Wythe County, the 16-acre Foster Falls Historic District recalls southwest Virginia’s iron ore industry. The historic district contains much of the commercial-industrial area of a 19th-century farming village that grew rapidly after the discovery of nearby iron ore and the construction in 1881 of an iron furnace—the last of the cold-blast, charcoal-fueled furnaces to operate in the region. At its peak the furnace produced 3,000 tons of pig iron annually. In 1887 a railroad depot was built near the furnace and by 1895 Foster Falls had an elegant Victorian-style hotel, a post office, gristmill and sawmill, general store, distillery, and about 100 houses, including a row of 27 now vanished company houses. After furnace operations ceased in 1914, the Foster Falls Hotel, which still stood at the time of listing, later served as a Presbyterian Church-run industrial school for homeless young women. In 1938, the school became a co-ed orphanage, which closed in 1962.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Programs
DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia