A crew of military veterans spent a month preserving history at this U.S. Forest Service property.
ASHEBORO — A crew of military veterans recently spent about a month in Randolph County preserving history.
The men and women replaced the roof, repaired windows and tackled other renovations at a 19th-century farmhouse at the Thornburg Trailhead on the northwestern edge of the Birkhead Mountains Wilderness — a 5,160-acre section of the Uwharrie National Forest in Randolph and Montgomery counties.
The vets were on the job under the umbrella of a pair of nonprofit groups — the Student Conservation Association (SCA) and HistoriCorps — in cooperation with the U.S. Forest Service.
“Our mission is just saving places — we focus on historic structures. It mostly needs a little TLC,” said Michael Salisbury of HistoriCorps, who was project manager for the work done at the Lewis-Thornburg Farm.
The site, off Lassiter Mill Road in southwestern Randolph County, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. The U.S. Forest Service purchased the house and 160-acre tract on which it stands in 1993.
At the time, media reported that a U.S. Post Office, the Hills Store Post Office had operated on the farm for 101 years, from 1823 to 1924, and served as a Confederate post office during the Civil War.
The remaking of history: Renovation progresses on Thornburg farm