Joseph Nichols built this Federal-style tavern on Lynchburg’s busy Fifth Street in 1815 to replace his previous establishment which had been destroyed by fire. Although its original façade was oriented to Madison Street, the forthright brick structure has long been a familiar landmark on Fifth Street, for many years the western entrance to the city. This location was the inspiration for a later designation, the Western Hotel, by which the building was known for over a century. A rear wing was added in the 1830s. One of Lynchburg’s earliest surviving commercial structures, the Joseph Nichols Tavern stood derelict for many years but was sympathetically rehabilitated in 1975 by the Lynchburg Restoration and Housing Corporation, a local nonprofit organization.
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
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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