817 S 5th Ave
Virginia, MN, USA

Coates House (Virginia, Minnesota)

The Coates House is a historic house in Virginia, Minnesota, United States. It was built around 1912 as one of the city's larger and finer residences. A succession of prominent people in the local lumber industry lived in it. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 for its local significance in the themes of architecture and social history. It was nominated for demonstrating the class distinctions telegraphed by housing stock on the Iron Range at the turn of the 20th century. Large houses for the managerial class provided a sharp contrast to the boarding houses and small cottages into which the period's working class population was crowded.

National Register of Historic Places - Coates House (Virginia, Minnesota)

Statement of Significance:

The house was used by several prominent men in the lumber industry centered in Virginia and -was one of the more lavish: homes along 5th Avenue South in its prime. The house, like most of the prominent homes; in Iron-Range towns, served as social and economic delimiter in the stratified conditions; of turn of-the-century community life in the iron mining towns-. The size' and sumptuousness- of the individual structures owned and lived in "by the mining and lumbering entrepreneurs and managers, especially after the establishment of corporate control of most major economic activities, served to demarcate social distance and to reinforce the sense of community leadership that these individuals collectively enjoyed. Coates, the original owner, was also a major entrepreneur in the non-mining sector of the Virginia economy and was owner/founder of the hotel that also "bears his. name that continues to be major landmark in the central business; district of Virginia.