Ware Shoals Inn
National Register Listing
Street Address:
1 Greenwood Avenue North, Ware Shoals, SC (Greenwood County)
NRHP Nomination
Record Number:
S10817724019
Description and Narrative:
The Ware Shoals Inn is significant for its association with the textile industry in South Carolina and for its prominent role in the life of the Ware Shoals community. Built by the Ware Shoals Manufacturing Company in 1923, the Inn served for decades as a center of activity in the village. Even though it was a public establishment, one of the hotel’s principal uses from the beginning was to provide lodging for persons having business with the mill and its employees. The Ware Shoals Inn is significant architecturally as an expression of the textile company’s influence on the design of a building that is not traditionally associated with mill villages. The massing and form are straightforward and efficient, with few features that are solely decorative in nature. Even so, the Inn’s design incorporates elements of the Arts and Crafts movement and Colonial Revival style to set it apart from the manufacturing facilities nearby. The end result is a building that is distinctive from, yet blends well with, its surroundings. The Inn has become even more prominent as a symbol of the town’s past since the destruction of the Ware Shoals Mill buildings. The Inn is a three-story brick building with a partial basement. The modified V-shaped building faces east, with a massive raised porch at its truncated vertex. Exterior walls of the lower level are finished in dark brick, while the upper two floors feature light-colored stucco. This design and the site’s sloping topography enhance the building’s dominance at one of the town’s most prominent intersections. Although the Inn has undergone several renovations and suffered a fire since its construction in 1923, the interior retains a high level of integrity, and the original exterior appearance is virtually intact. Listed in the National Register November 1, 2007.
Period of Significance:
1923 – 1957;1923
Level of Significance:
Local
Area of Significance:
Architecture;Industry
National Register Determination:
listed
Date of Certification:
November 1 2007
