Organized in 1839, Virginia Military Institute is the nation’s earliest state-supported military school and has supplied the country with many outstanding military leaders, most prominently General of the Army George C. Marshall. The campus, located in the Lexington Historic District, consists of some twenty-five major buildings united by a castellated Gothic Revival style. The focal point, The Barracks, is a much-evolved complex originally designed by Alexander Jackson Davis. Davis also designed Gothic Revival faculty houses lining the Parade Ground, of which the Gilham House (1852) and the Superintendent’s Quarters (1860) survive. In the 1910s, architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue was commissioned for Jackson Memorial Hall and additional faculty houses. The original Gothic character established by Davis has been carefully maintained in these and later works. Lending variety is a scattering of 19th-century and later dwellings, including the Gothic Revival Pendleton-Coles Cottage, where Gen. Marshall was married.
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