Gainesville house listed on National Register of Historic Places

GAINESVILLE - A house located near Green Street and Brenau Avenue in Gainesville has been listed on National Register of Historic Places.

It's at 204 Green Street and now houses the Meeks Center, which mentors to at-risk girls.

It's also known as the Bailey-Harper House/Doctors Building was built as a single-family residence around 1890 but served as a doctor's office between 1929 and 1963.

Mrs. Annie L. Bailey built the house and lived there until her death in 1923. It is described as "significant in the area of architecture as a good example of a late 19th-century Georgian cottage, a house type popular in all periods of Georgia history, especially from 1850 to 1890. It is significant in the area of health and medicine because of its 34-year association with the medical practice of Dr. Jesse L. Meeks."

Meeks' practice "represents a transition from doctors seeing patients in home offices, long the practice in Georgia, to the establishment of professional buildings near hospitals, which became increasingly common after World War II."

Dr. Meeks' practice is described as among the largest and most successful in north Georgia at the time.