Lawrenceville Historic District includes most of the town that has developed around the Brunswick County seat, established in 1814. Much of that growth was directly related to the coming of the Atlantic and Danville Railroad in 1891, which tied the broad local agricultural base to national markets. At the same time, James Solomon, an Episcopal priest and formerly enslaved, founded St Paul’s College, a private African American college. The Lawrenceville Historic District includes the courthouse square, the college, blocks of commercial buildings built between 1870 and 1940, and residential areas with domestic structures primarily from the 1890s to 1920. In addition, it includes a variety of public buildings, railroad-related resources and well-preserved recreational facilities built by the Civil Works Administration (CWA) and Works Progress Administration (WPA), federal New Deal programs in the 1930s. Few large towns have such a cohesive and complete fabric.

Additional Documentation was submitted to update the Lawrenceville Historic District nomination, including current information about the district’s physical condition, further documentation of the  significance of the district, and extending the end date of the district’s period of significance from 1949 to 1973.  The extension into the early 1970’s allowed for the inclusion of a new area of significance, Social History; and additional context and justification for other related areas of significance such as Education and African American Heritage, due to the contributions of James Solomon Russell and Nellie Pratt Russell, and to events associated with the Civil Rights movement in Lawrenceville.
[NRHP Approved: 8/5/2021]