These shady residential streets of the Miller-Southside Residential Historic District in the Montgomery County town of Blacksburg present a model image of a wholesome, small-town neighborhood of the first half of the 20th century. The houses, though unpretentious, are comfortable, well-built, and well-designed. With an abundance of lawn and trees they make the perfect setting for nurturing the American family ideal. Individuality is preserved through some half-dozen stylistic idioms including Dutch Colonial, Tudor Revival, Georgian Revival, Bungalow, and Foursquare. The grid-plan blocks of the Miller-Southside Residential Historic District comprise two contiguous additions. The first was a 1913 development by the Southside Land Company. The second, the Miller Addition, was laid out in 1919. An openness and cohesion was achieved with a twenty-foot setback and a minimum construction value. Virginia Tech architectural professor, Clinton Harriman Cowgill, helped set the architectural tone in the 1930s by designing some ten houses in the Miller-Southside Residential Historic District, all variations of the Colonial and Tudor revivals.
The Miller-Southside Residential Historic District was listed in the registers under the Prehistoric and Historic Resources of Montgomery County MPD.
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