VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Two historic districts in Virginia Beach are joining the evergrowing Virginia Landmarks Register, which honors the historic and cultural significance of a site.
The Chesapeake Beach Historic District and the Pleasant Ridge School Historic District are among the 12 latest historic sites to make the list, according to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (DHR).
With the Chesapeake Beach Historic District being one of the oldest bayside beachfront neighborhoods, it's credited for growing the city of Virginia Beach, or what was then Princess Anne County. Further, the 20th-century beachfront neighborhood's development was shaped by its surrounding natural environment like the Chesapeake Bay and Pleasure House Lake.
Unlike many of the nearby communities, the neighborhood did not lean into commercial resort developments.
"Chesapeake Beach’s reputation as a residential ‘beach cottage’ community contrasts with the nearby oceanfront resort featuring hotels and other businesses that cater to vacationers," the release reads.
The DHR called the Chesapeake Beach Historic District a "rarity among the city’s neighborhoods."
The Pleasant Ridge School Historic District located south of Pungo features a one-room schoolhouse, a 20th-century church and a cemetery.
The school was initially constructed in 1886 for white students but was eventually moved in 1918 during the Jim Crow era in Virginia's public education system. That's when it began teaching Black students in the first- to seventh grades.
It eventually closed in 1956 when the city of Virginia Beach began to desegregate public schools.
"The school is a rare surviving one-room schoolhouse in the region and is likely the only extant example in the city of Virginia Beach," according to the DHR website. "Due to the evolution of the site, an archaeological assessment was undertaken to document the Pleasant Ridge School’s importance to community life, history, and activism of Black communities during the Jim Crow era. The artifacts and intact archaeological layers within the Pleasant Ridge School Historic District contain the potential to inform not only our understanding of the history of the school, but African American education in the former Princess Anne County and the wider American South."
The other sites added to the Virginia Landmarks Register span across the state, including Richmond's Hickory Hill County Training School and Harrisonburg's Green Book-listed Ida Mae Francis Tourist Home.
For more details on the designated historical sites, check out the DHR's website.
