They don’t get a second’s look as we go about our day’s busyness, but that’s okay. They don’t care. In fact, it might be best if we just keep on keepin’ on. Slowing down to gawk out the car window might cause serious problems. They’ll still be there tomorrow…and next week…and… Most will, anyway. Right many won’t, but collapsing homes aren’t much to see.

For a book of just 101 pages, The Alleghany Historical Properties Commission’s “Alleghany Architecture: A Pictorial Survey,” covers much more than pictures of old houses. Jean Sizemore, the book’s author, provides a lot more than architectural details, too! If you live in Alleghany, you’ve passed these old homes many times.

Ms. Sizemore mentions the three Maynard brothers who came here from Surry in 1784, and made Glade Creek their home. “Around 1795,” she reports, “Francis Bryan, Joel Simmons, William Woodruff and several members of the Crouse family settled in the area which became Cherry Lane. The Turkey Knob area was first settled by the Cox and the McMillian families.” Not mentioned is the fact that such “crowding” caused the Maynards to pack up and head for Kentucky.

In the last 25 years or so, you and I have watched several historic homes crumble into oblivion. It’s not a pretty sight. Two caught my attention: The first was a grand white house standing proudly atop a finger ridge on U.S. 221, just beyond Joines Dairy Road. It’s my understanding that ownership changed several times before it was bartered into oblivion. A man offered to tear it down and haul it off in exchange for the inside fixtures and such. Seems he took those but never came back. The place collapsed board by board until someone fulfilled the rest of the bargain hunter’s promise. Only the barn and a terra cotta silo remain.

W. R. Gentry built the other house in the early 1900s, on what is now N.C. 18, at Chestnut Grove Church Road. Mr. Gentry’s imagination and entrepreneurial attitude certainly answered the community’s needs, with his grist mill, sawmill, furniture factory and coffin-making enterprises. The home’s design might be called “busy,” given its ornamental chimneys and many gables. A wraparound porch was once supported by lathe-turned posts, which were made available to the Schuler Duncan home in the early 1980s. The porch is nearly gone and the roof clatters in the wind. Those who know say the inside’s a wreck.

Also in Gap Civil is “the only residence in the county from this period known to have been built from magazine or mail-order plans.” It belonged to William Sherman Hudson who probably made good use of its broad and ornate front porch. The Hudsons’ descendants have kept it neat and pretty since its completion in 1910.

Glade Valley’s Abram Bryan home was built in 1840, and is “the oldest intact frame house in the county.” It’s also interesting because that was on Ashe County land at the time.

C.C. Thompson’s post office, barbershop, grocery, and sundries store, was built in the 1920’s. It still stands just down the street from Glade Valley School’s site. Like other community stores, he also sold herbs and wild game.

Beyond the old Glade Valley School campus is the quaint little Glade Valley Presbyterian Church. Its larger twin, Mount Carmel Baptist Church, is on Cherry Lane.

Frank Osborn’s house is a short distance down Fox Knob Road, below where it meets N.C. 93. But you’ll see the house long before there. Joe Finney built that home in 1903, and it was considered to be “the most modern in the county, with running water, a bathroom, a telephone and electricity supplied from a generator.” Bays Hash and his family maintained the home in its original design.

The very inviting home built for Grover Perry in 1921 is on N.C. 113, not far south from its junction with 93. Mr. Perry descendants have kept it picture-perfect for many years. The gleaming white home nearly unscrewed my head when I first drove past it in the mid-70s. Truth be known, it inspired Miss Sophie’s house in “A Town Called Woodbridge.” Estel Wyatt may have dreamed a castle into place in the early 1900s. His square-ish house is a two-story with an attic gable high above the front door and porch. Each corner has a five-sided tower from ground level up to the attic. Early on, stained glass panes accented the second story windows, but no more. Like so many others, it now belongs to the weather.

Ms. Sizemore’s book has nearly 300 photographs and brief descriptions of Alleghany’s historical homes, stores, churches, schools and businesses. Chances are, some of these are in your neighborhood. If you’d like to know more, add the book to your shopping list! It’s an investment in our county’s past.