Tour Of Danville.

During my trip to Danville last week, I decided to take a drive down Main Street, shoot some pictures of the homes, and share them with you.
Let's take a tour of Danville, Virginia's, Main Street, shall we?

This is Stratford College, which, unfortunately, closed its doors, due to financial difficulties, back in 1974, after 120 years as an academic institution.
Mama Hawthorne attended when it was Randolph Macon Institute and I went there for two semesters, before it closed.
Gee, you don't think I had anything to do with that, do you?

This is the old Catholic church which is now a private home.
The rose garden has been there forever.
I remember it from since I was a little girl.

Husband and wife doctors bought it a few years ago and live there.

This is the Sutherlin Mansion, home to Major William T. Sutherlin.
In April, 1865, Major Sutherlin opened his home to Jefferson Davis and the Confederate government. Davis wrote his last proclamation to the Confederacy here, hence Danville is known as the Last Capital of the Confederacy.
When I was growing up, it was the Danville Library.
Now it's the Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History.

The following area of Danville is known as Millionaire's Row.
It features a collection of Edwardian and Victorian architecture built by tobacconists and entrepreneurs who created Dan River Industries, formerly one of the world's largest textile mills, which recently closed.
I shot all these pictures from inside Mama Hawthorne's car since I was taking her out for a spin and she was telling me the history of the houses.

This house has been under renovations forever.

Mama Hawthorne was born in this house in 1914.
The house was built in 1907 and it took the man 2 years to build it since he waited for the hard wood floors to season.

This is the old hospital on Jefferson Avenue which someone is restoring. My mother's sister, Auntie Hawthorne was born here in 1917.

This house was my great grandfather's house.
Mama's Daddy's Daddy.

This is Main Street Methodist church, completed in 1891.
There's a bible class named after my great grandfather, Judge Peatross, here. For fifty years, he taught a class of young men. That class was name the Peatross Bible Class in his honor.
Wish I could have gotten inside to shoot the stained glass (although I do have slides I shot 20 plus years ago). The stained glass is some of the prettiest I've ever seen. Unfortunately, the church recently closed it doors.

This is the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany, built between 1879 and 1881. Jefferson Davis worshipped there on April 9, 1865. Later that afternoon, Lee's Northern Virginia army surrendered to Grant at Appomattox. This church replaced the original wood church, built in 1844, on the same lot. It was the older church in which President Jefferson Davis worshipped during the days Danville served as the Last Capital of the Confederacy. The bell from the first church was given to the Confederacy for metal for its cannons. A second and larger bell was installed in 1866 or 67 and still rings today.

This is the home of the deceased Gary Bengston,
a lawyer in Danville.

I used to live in the bottom left apartment.

Baptist Church.

The Presbyterian church.
Danville is also known as the "City of Churches."
It has more churches per square mile than any other city in the state of Virginia.

This is the home of Nancy Langhorne Astor,
socialite and first woman to serve in the British Parliament.

Nancy Langhorne's sister, Irene, was the original Gibson Girl,
painted by her husband Charles Dana Gibson.