Dillard Barn

National Register Listing

Street Address:

719 Virginia Drive, Mullins, SC (Marion County)

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NRHP Nomination

Record Number:

S10817734014

Description and Narrative:

The Dillard Barn is significant for its association with the production of bright, or flue-cured, tobacco in Marion County, its connection with the development of Mullins as South Carolina’s largest tobacco market at the turn of the twentieth century, and as an excellent and intact example of a log or pole tobacco barn. It is an increasingly rare type of agricultural resource and one that is rapidly disappearing from the landscape of the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. The Dillard Barn, built ca. 1894-95 by John H. Dillard and his sons A.E. and Daniel Dillard, was used for curing tobacco from its construction until 1981 when bulk tobacco barns were placed on the property. There have been no additions to the barn since its construction, and few alterations. The original wood shingles were replaced with a tin roof, and in the 1950s, as curing fuels and technologies evolved, the brick furnaces and original flues were removed and replaced with an oil burner. The log barn is supported by a brick foundation with a dirt floor. It was constructed in a single pen plan, and the 6’ to 8’ logs used in the construction are saddle notched with a chinking of brick and clay. Weatherboards were placed between the logs on the exterior of the building. The building with its sheds has the appearance of a gable-on-hip roofed structure. Listed in the National Register September 28, 2005.

Period of Significance:

circa 1894 – 1955

Level of Significance:

Local

Area of Significance:

Agriculture;Architecture

National Register Determination:

listed

Date of Certification:

September 28 2005

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