The Port Republic Road Historic District is principal historic African American neighborhood in the city of Waynesboro. The community formed after the Civil War within the framework of an early 19th-century subdivision established near the industrial complex of mill owner Frederick Imboden. The neighborhood’s proximity to Waynesboro’s industrial section and railroad depots was attractive to Black laborers after the war, and by the early 1870s houses and churches were being built. The earliest dwellings were constructed of log, but the later houses are of frame construction and display simple Victorian and Craftsman details. Significant buildings in the Port Republic Road Historic District include Shiloh Baptist Church, built in 1924, the Elks and Abraham lodges, a Rosenwald school, and Tarry’s Hotel, built in 1940 near the railroad tracks.