Welcome to the Germanton Project!

Germanton is my hometown. It's situated on the Stokes-Forsyth County line, north of Winston-Salem, NC, and it's the place I learned to love history. A year or two ago, I started a long-thought-of but long-put-off research project to document the town's buildings. I am an architectural historian and buildings are my preferred springboard for talking about a place's history, so I started digging into deed books with the ultimate goal of creating a well-documented, soundly-sourced history of the town.

I'm not there yet: the deeds and research have led me in a lot of unexpected directions (one might call them tangents), and for such a tiny wide spot in the road, Germanton has a lot of layers. So, in an effort to share what I've learned so far (and to push myself to actually produce something), I decided to use a blog for posting short essays. Most essays will be histories of individual houses, but I also hope to post stories and histories about certain groups, individuals, institutions, eras, and significant events.

I'll aim to post a new essay or at least a photograph or map every week, so hopefully, you'll find something new every time you visit this blog, but if you see an error, have a question, or if you'd like to contribute an article, there's a contact form at the bottom of the page.

Thanks for your interest in Germanton!

Styers-Long-Woodard House