Did you know?

Church Street was Second Street

On the 1886 Sanborn map, the streets crossing Main on either side of Wayne Avenue are 2nd Street and 1st Street. By 1907 the map labels them "Church (Second)" and "Mill (First)": Church Street for the Methodist and Presbyterian churches on it, Mill Street for the street running down to the J. A. Patterson Jr. roller mill by the river.

Federal Street was Sycamore Alley

The street one block south of Main is Sycamore on the 1886 map. The 1920 map labels it "Federal (Sycamore Alley)", catching the new name while the old one was still in use.

Mill Street has disappeared

Mill Street ran from Main Street down past the flour mill and the Lambert planing mill on every Sanborn map from 1907 to 1925. It doesn't appear in today's street data.

330 W Main St, Casper Coiner House

Downtown's oldest building may be Waynesboro's first brick house

The Casper Coiner House at 330 West Main Street dates to about 1806, which makes it the district's oldest surviving building. According to a nineteenth-century account it was also Waynesboro's first brick dwelling. As the Coiner-Quesenbery House it was individually listed on the National Register in 1976.

601 W Main St, Main Street Methodist Church

A wooden dwelling stood here before the church

Sanborn fire insurance maps from 1907 to 1920 show a two-story wooden dwelling at this address. The current brick church replaced this earlier structure.

617 W Main St, George S. Etter House

George S. Etter's brick veneer home

Sanborn maps suggest the house at 617 W Main St was originally wood-framed in 1913, with brick veneer appearing by 1920 and solid brick by 1925.

618 W Main St, Reynolds Funeral Service and Crematory

A dwelling stood on this lot before the 1941 funeral home

Sanborn maps suggest a two-story wooden dwelling occupied this lot as early as 1920, decades before the current brick building was erected in 1941.

620 W Main St, General Wayne Inn

The General Wayne Inn replaced an earlier wooden dwelling

Sanborn maps suggest the current brick hotel replaced an earlier two-story wooden dwelling that stood on this lot in 1925.

Sources differ: the 1913 Sanborn map gives “Sanborn maps suggest the current brick hotel replaced an earlier two-story wooden dwelling that stood on this lot in 1925”; the 1913 Sanborn map says “The lot is empty”.

Waynesboro and Basic City became one town in 1923

Voters in both towns approved consolidation in August 1923. The combined town was first called Waynesboro-Basic; the General Assembly renamed it Waynesboro in 1924.

Sanborn's surveyors counted the town each time

The title pages of the Waynesboro Sanborn maps give its population: 1,200 in 1886 (when the map also noted "Water facilities: Not good"), 2,500 for Waynesboro and the new Basic City together in 1891, 1,600 in 1907 (with 1,500 more in Basic City), 1,400 in 1913, 2,100 in 1920, and 4,000 in 1925, the first edition after the merger.