Built in 1888, the Vaughan House is a prominent Italianate-style residence in South Boston, Halifax County’s largest town. The two-story frame house is distinguished by elaborate ornamentation including a bracketed and vented cornice, fringed window heads, intricate ceiling medallions, and fireplaces with brightly hued ceramic tilework. The house was built for Halifax County Clerk of Court Edgar Hopson Vaughan, who lived there with his second wife, Ida Rogers Vaughan, founder of South Boston’s public library in 1915. After Edgar’s death in 1893, Ida married his younger brother, Aaron Haskins Vaughan. Their son, Aaron Hugh Vaughan (known to the family as Hugh), toured the nation as bandmaster for Vaughan’s Virginians, a 1920s dance band. Another son, Page Haskins Vaughan, was the first president of the National Tobacco Festival held in South Boston in the 1930s and early 1940s. The Vaughan House also contributes to the South Boston Historic District.
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