Historic Buildings/Structures:

• Three resources are currently listed on the National Register of Historic Places: White Chimneys, Eshelman’s Mill Bridge (carrying Belmont Road) and Herr’s Mill Bridge (at Mill Bridge Village).
  
  
• Fifteen structures were previously determined to be eligible for the National Register. These structures include residences, farmsteads, Reynolds Tavern, Herr’s Grist Mill, a toll house, and a railroad freight house.
  
  
• Approximately 50 properties not contained within an historic district are additionally recommended to be eligible.

These properties will be further evaluated through Historic Resource Survey Forms. These forms will assess each property’s eligibility based upon individual background history and in terms of the historic contexts being developed for the study area.

The term "object" is used to distinguish from buildings and structures those constructions that are primarily artistic in nature or are relatively small in scale and simply constructed. Objects should be in a setting appropriate for listing in the National Register. Examples of objects include boundary markers, mileposts, and monuments. There are two mileposts from the old Philadelphia-Lancaster Turnpike in the study corridor. One of these is shown on the home page of this website.

Village & Rural Historic Districts:

• Two historic districts have been previously determined to be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places: Gap and Paradise.
• Four historic districts are recommended eligible for the National Register: Rising Sun, Slaymakertown, Kinzers, and Jacob Eshelman Mill.
• A small collection of residences along Chestnut Street in Gap is recommended to be added to the existing Gap Historic District.
• Ten historic districts are recommended not eligible or have been previously determined not eligible for the National Register: Buyerstown, Harristown, Williamstown (Vintage), Paradise Elementary Crossroads, Leaman Place, Gordonville, Soudersburg, Soudersburg West, Ronks, and Smoketown.

The study area is unique for its continued agricultural traditions that began in the 1710s and continue to the present. It possesses a concentration of agrarian buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries that are still actively used as part of highly productive farms. The farmsteads of the study area exhibit patterns in the relationship of their main structures to the surrounding outbuildings, fields, and farm lanes and vary little from the patterns of 100 to 200 years ago. These patterns are repeated across the landscape of the study area.

The architecture of these farms resulted from a blending of building traditions brought to the area by early ethnic groups: a high quality of workmanship, and an assemblage of vernacular agrarian architecture representing a wide range of agricultural trends adapted to the landscape. Many agricultural buildings were constructed for dairy and tobacco-related production, the mainstay of the local agrarian economy for nearly 100 years. This area is also recognized for its large population of Plain Sect people.

The National Register of Historic Places defines a rural historic landscape as "a geographical area that has been used, shaped or modified over time by human activity, occupancy or intervention, and possesses a significant concentration, linkage or continuity of historic landscape features….". These qualities exist in the study area and as a result three rural historic districts are recommended eligible for the National Register:

• Mill Creek Trubutary
• Pequea North
• Pequea South

For more on this topic, click here.

Linear Resources:

There are three linear corridors within the study area: the Lincoln Highway, the Strasburg Railroad, and the Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad (part of the Pennsylvania Railroad Main Line). The Lincoln Highway, Route 30, is recommended not eligible as a linear resource within the study area. The Strasburg Railroad and the Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad have already been determined eligible.