The district includes notable examples of Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, and Bungalow / American Craftsman style architecture.

Other notable buildings include workers houses in four local mill villages, Driscoll-Piland-Webb House (c. 1897), Dickens-Webb House (1906-1907), Samuel F. Patterson (1914-1915), Council-Coburn House (1925-1927), First Presbyterian Church (1915), All Saints Episcopal Church designed by Hobart Upjohn (1917), (former) First Baptist Church (1928-1929), (former) Nurses Home and School (1930-1931), Clara Hearne Elementary School (1933-1935), (former) North Carolina National Guard Armory (1940-1941), (former) United States Post Office (1937-1938), Rosemary Drug Co. Building (1915-1916), Shelton Hotel (c. 1915), First National Bank Building (1914-1915), J. C. Penney and Co. Building (1938-1942), McCrory Co. Building (1940), Imperial Theatre Building (1919, 1931), (former) Seaboard Air Line Passenger Station (1917), Rosemary Manufacturing Company complex, Patterson Mills Co. (1910), and Roanoke Mills Co. Plant No.

Shortly after midnight on August 1, 1952, when the Carolina Trailways bus she was riding on pulled in, an African American woman, Sarah Keys, was forced to give up her seat and move to the so-called "colored section" in the back of the bus.

Keys refused and was arrested, charged, jailed overnight in Roanoke Rapids, and fined $25 for disorderly conduct.

[4] Keys v. Carolina Coach made legal history both at the time of its issuance in 1955, and again in 1961, when Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy invoked it in his successful battle to end Jim Crow travel during the Freedom Riders' campaign.