Historic Structures

Harvard School, Cleveland Ohio

The Harvard School is in a working-class neighborhood of Cleveland known today as Slavic Village. Located nearly five miles southeast of downtown Cleveland's Public Square, the neighborhood around the school became home to many immigrants of Slavic background who arrived in Cleveland from eastern and southern Europe in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. The city's rapid industrialization during this period meant many opportunities for low- and semi-skilled jobs, particularly in the numerous steel mills and factories located both to the south and west in the Flats area of the Cuyahoga River valley, and to the northeast in an industrial corridor located north of Broadway and east of East 79^th Street. Today the Harvard School is surrounded by modest working-class houses dating primarily from the early 20^th century. Harvard Avenue, which is a busy east-west corridor, passes the north side of the school, and East 71^st Street, an active north-south commercial street, passes to the east. The building is surrounded by flat lawn and playground areas; an industrial building is located close to the school's east end on Polonia Avenue. The area has a strong, dense urban working-class character, and the Harvard School was built to educate the many children living here in the early 20^th century.

Park Building, Cleveland Ohio

The Park Building is a large, prominently sited and highly intact example of the style and form of commercial buildings that were being erected in the larger cities of the United States in the years shortly following the turn of the century. The building utilizes steel frame construction and features a symmetrical exterior clad in brick with cast stone trim. Stylistically, the building has elements of Neoclassical and Tudor Revival forms that relate to Chicago skyscrapers of an earlier decade. Its restrained exterior is a sharp departure from the buildings of downtown Cleveland erected around this same time and reflects the desire of the building's developers to achieve a highly functional building that provided a large amount of light and display window area. Its design by Cleveland architect Frank S. Barnum is sophisticated, yet largely devoid of historical imagery that helped to shape the exteriors of his other commercial buildings, such as the Caxton Building, built just one year earlier, which features a massive cornice and robust yet intricate entrance portal. It is the tallest and most prominent commercial building designed by this important Cleveland architect. Frank Seymour Barnum (1851-1927) was a prominent Cleveland architect who began his career as a draftsman for Cleveland architect Joseph Ireland, designer of some of the finest late nineteenth-century residences along Euclid Avenue's famed Millionaires' Row. While in the office he met Forrest A. Coburn and the two went into practice together under the name Coburn & Barnum in 1878. During their twenty-year practice together, ending with Coburn's death in 1897, the firm planned some of the city's most distinguished buildings, including the Furniture Block and the Blackstone Block, the latter an example of fire-resistant mill construction that featured a four-story interior light court. The firm designed numerous churches, including Euclid Avenue Congregational, and residences for George Howe, William J. Morgan, and the Washington Lawrence House in Bay Village, since transformed into condominiums. They also designed the Olney Art Gallery on West 14^th Street and the former home of the Western Reserve Historical Society. During its final year, the firm became known as Coburn, Barnum, Hubbell & Benes, in recognition of two talented younger members of the firm who, after Coburn's death went on to form their own highly successful practice which included the design of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Caxton Office Building, Cleveland Ohio

The building was constructed in 1901-1903. The president of the Caxton Building Company was Ambrose Swasey (1846-1939), founder of Warner and Swasey and a great promoter of the benefits of engineering to mankind. The Caxton Company was a commercial printing and graphic arts business. The building has been devoted to occupants in the graphic arts trades. It was named after William Caxton, the first British printer in the fifteenth century. In 1905 it was occupied by the business of Alfred Cahen which subsequently became the World Publishing Company. The architect was Frank S. Barnum, official public school architect beginning in 1895, who initiated a "new era" in functional, fireproof, utilitarian school construction. He also designed the Park Building of 1904, called one of the earliest in Cleveland to use floor slabs of reinforced concrete.

George Stoudt House - Octagon House, Mount Pleasant Pennsylvania

This octagonal house was a local landmark and conversation piece from the day construction was completed. Local residents still marvel at this radically different way of planning a farmhouse. The original owners of the house, George and Adam Stoudt, were known to be the type of strong-minded individuals that would be willing to make a sharp break with long-standing local building traditions. "The eight sided home," writes John Maass in The Victorian Home in America, "defiant among its foursquare neighbors, was always the choice of an individualist". The circumstances surrounding the construction of the house are also noteworthy. Under the terms which George Stoudt purchased the property in 1865, he was obligated to pay Lydia Dundor $50 per year and allow her use of the original farmhouse (an interesting log and stone building which was constructed in 1812, and enlarged in 1848) until her death. This was a Pennsylvania German custom known as a widow's dowry. George Stoudt thus has to construct a new house for his family on the property; this house became the octagon house. George soon retired to nearby Mt. Pleasant (his lot is clearly marked in the 1876 Berks County atlas), leaving the farm to his son Adam (1835-1923).

Philippi Covered Bridge, Philippi West Virginia

The wooden, two-lane covered bridge, crossing the Tygart's Valley River, at Philippi, Barbour County, West Virginia was built in 1852. It is one of only six remaining two-lane covered bridges in the United States. It is the only wooden bridge to accommodate busy federal highway traffic, U. S. 250. The bridge was constructed in 1851-52 to facilitate the 1848 Beverly and Fairmont Road, which had been built to stimulate the use of the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike, an important link with Richmond and Norfolk. The Beverly and Fairmont Road ended at Fairmont on the Monongahela River, a terminal on the new Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The Clarksburg Democrat printed a request for bids for the bridge at Philippi in May 1850. Contracts were awarded to Emmett J. O'Brien for the masonry work, and to Lemuel and Eli Chenoweth, of Beverly, Virginia, now West Virginia, for the superstructure of the bridge. The foundation proved a lengthy task and an outbreak of typhoid fever further delayed progress. Late in 1852, the bridge was completed at a cost of $12,181.24.

Chesapeake Beach Railroad Engine House, Seat Pleasant Maryland

Otto Mears (developer of Colorado's Rio Grande Southern Railroad, among others), the Russian-born Colorado-based entrepreneur known as the "pathfinder of the San Juan" was the principal promoter of the Chesapeake Beach Railway. Mears had planned that his direct link to Chesapeake Bay would be a high speed line, 28 miles long, run by electric power from a third rail system. Notably, once the engine house was completed and steam locomotives were fully 1n service, Mears resigned as General Manager of the Chesapeake Beach Railway. David Moffat, the richest man in Colorado by 1900 (President, Denver and Rio Grande Railroad and president, Denver National Bank), was the major sponsor before 1902, when the engine house was completed. The work accomplished during the tenure of these men essentially remained intact for the whole course of the history of the railroad. Beginning when Washington had developed into an urban area and government employees were an identifiable holiday market for the railroad, the Chesapeake Beach Railway was planned as a passenger rail line to the Bay resort which Mears hoped would rival the renowned New England casino resorts. While occasional freight to and from the local agricultural area was carried at night, the passenger business to and from Chesapeake Beach was the focus of the railroad. The company ceased operation In 1935, the victim of a major economic depression. By 1903, the yard located in rural Maryland near the District limits, in an area called Seat Pleasant after 1906, was occupied by the engine house, a turntable, sidings and storage tracks, a paint shop, and a water tank. Other secondary structures were added between 1903 and in 1936.

Blithewold Mansion, Bristol Rhode Island

Ground was broken for Blithewold in 1895, but the house was destroyed by fire only eleven years later in 1906. The present house dates from 1907. The property which became Blithewold has a long history of social gatherings. It was first developed as a summer retreat in the mid-nineteenth century by John Rogers Gardner, a prominent New York banker. While Mr. and Mrs. Gardner owned the property, it was the setting for visits and (following Mr. Gardner's death), rentals by numerous native and foreign luminaries, M. de Struvee, the Russian Minister to the United States, General Burnside, and Nelson W. Aldrich among others.

Poplar Point Lighthouse, North Kingstown Rhode Island

Established in 1831 at the entrance to Wickford Harbor on the site of a Revolutionary War battle, Poplar Point Light is significant as the oldest surviving lighthouse in Rhode Island on its original site. Earlier lights were established at eight other locations, but only one of these structures survives. It, however, is not on its original site and was disassembled during the move. Although the Poplar Point lantern is not original and the dwelling has been altered and added to since the light's active period, the oldest section is a good early example of a keeper's dwelling with an attached tower. The tower and dwelling were constructed in 1831 by Charles Allen of Kingston at a cost of $1,888. In 1869 the Lighthouse Board recommended that the dwelling, which was in need of repairs, be renovated, and that the original lantern be replaced. This was done two years later, but in 1878 the Board cited the need for an additional navigational aid to mark the entrance to Wickford Harbor. It proposed the establishment of another lighthouse on Old Gay Rock, 500 yards north of Poplar Point. When the new Wickford Harbor Light was completed on November 1, 1882, Poplar Point Light was discontinued after fifty-one years of service.

Bank of Surrency - Post Office, Surrency Georgia

Located on the corner of Hart and Main streets in the small, rural town of Surrency in Appling County, Georgia, the Bank of Surrency is the only remaining historic commercial building in the downtown and service first as a bank and later as a post office. Constructed in 1911 to house the local branch of the Baxley Banking Company, the building is a good example of a small-town bank, which anchored the once-thriving community of Surrency. It was the only bank in town until 1921. The Baxley Banking Company closed in 1922, and the building was sold to F.D. Kennedy and J.M. Kennedy. The building served as a post office from 1926 to 1960. A new post office was constructed in 1960 and the building was sold for storage.

Eleventh District School, Covington Kentucky

The former 11^th District School building is one of the chief landmarks of the small (population about 2,000) community of West Covington, an area annexed by the city of Covington in 1916. Set near the top of a ridge surrounded by the hills of Northern Kentucky to the south and by the Ohio River Valley to the north, the building, a restrained Tudor Revival design typical of the post-World War I era, is highly visible from many directions. It was built in 1920-22 to extend the benefits of the traditionally excellent Covington public school system to the newly annexed community, which is geographically somewhat separate from the 19^th-century city, located around a bend of the hills in the adjacent Licking River Valley. The 11^th District School was designed by the prolific and highly competent Columbus, Ohio, architectural firm of Richards, McCarty & Bulford, who also were responsible for the design of many important buildings in central Kentucky. A compatible 1931 addition was designed by northern Kentucky architect Chester H. Disque. In the vicinity of several other community institutions, the school building remains a visual landmark, although it was reluctantly, closed because of Federal student~busing requirements in 1979. A group of local investors is currently (1983) considering renovation and adaptive re-use of the structure for apartments, utilizing the Tax Incentives available under the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981. West Covington was originally known as "Economy." It was established about 1846 on the estate of Israel Ludlow, a prominent early Cincinnati and northern Kentucky land-owner and developer. The town was incorporated in 1858 as West Covington. The population grew from 554 in 1860 to 993 in 1870 according to Collins. As early as the mid-1870s there was a movement to annex it to the city of Covington, whose population continued to expand after the Civil War. Annexation was not accomplished, however, until 1916, during a period when a number of adjacent areas to the south and west of the 19^th-century city were also annexed.

Lima Pennsylvania Railroad Passenger Depot, Lima Ohio

The land on which the depot is located is part of McHenry's (first) addition. William McHenry and his wife Malvina obtained the addition as part of a larger portion, the east lot of the northwest quarter section of section 31, township 3 south, range 7 of the Piqua Land District from Joseph Edwards and his wife Comfort in 1845 for the sum of $600. The property was approximately 29 acres. On July 13^th, 1853, Dr. McHenry's 29 acres were subdivided into a rectilinear grid system of streets, blocks, lots, and alleys continuing the original Lima town plan pattern. It became part of the McHenry's Addition surveyed by John P. Haller. More than a year later, on November 27^th, 1854, he sold for $1,200 to the Ohio & Indiana Rail Road Company, two acres and 64/100^ths of an acre, more or less, and another parcel containing 18/100^ths of an acre, more or less, for the site of the future Ohio & Indiana Railroad station in Lima. The lot was bounded to the west by Main Street, and along the line between sections 30 and 31, reached Accommodation Street (the north-south railroad axis).

Samuel M. Nickerson House - American College of Surgeons, Chicago Illinois

The house was designed in 1883 by one of Chicago's earliest architects, Edward Burling, for Samuel M. Nickerson, a wealthy banker. Nickerson spared no expense in creating his "Marble Palace," so-called because of its elegant interior which was finished in marbles, rare woods, and other rich materials. The original character of this spectacular home is beautifully preserved to this day. The Nickerson Mansion was one of the most expensive and lavish homes built in Chicago before the turn of the century. "Nickerson's Marble Palace" as it was widely known, was the showplace home of Samuel M. Nickerson, a prominent Chicago banker and one of the wealthiest men of his time. Nickerson was born in Massachusetts and came to Chicago in 1858 to enter the distilling business. He soon became involved in banking, being one of the founders of the First National Bank of Chicago in 1863. He was president of this, the oldest bank in the city, when he built his North-Side mansion in 1883. Nickerson was also the first president of the Union Stockyards National Bank, as well as the founder and president of the old Chicago City Street Railway Company. Nickerson was an active participant in the cultural life of Chicago, leaving a large collection of artifacts to the Art Institute.

Fisher Building, Chicago Illinois

A very thorough account of the construction of the Fisher Building and a complete description with photographs are found in the article "The Fisher Building, Chicago--A Building without Walls", Inland Architect, (May, 1896), pp. 41-48. Below is a synopsis of the article: The writer states: "But here, for what we believe to be the first time in human experience, one of the highest commercial buildings in the world has been erected almost without any bricks. It fronts on three streets, and on the remaining side adjoins other property. The fronts are covered with cellular terra cotta on the outside, not in imitation of a wall, but following upward the steel supporting members, and closing in the transoms between the windows, leaving two-thirds of the exterior to be enclosed by glass..." Thus, the building is covered in a thin skin of terra cotta, a curtain wall: "Only two bricklayers were employed at any time in this part of the work" (The backing of the terra cotta fronts with brick).

Nayatt Point Lighthouse, Barrington Rhode Island

Established in 1828 at the entrance to the Providence River, the Nayatt Point Lighthouse is one of the few surviving structures directly related to the early nineteenth-century maritime trade of Providence. From the time of its establishment until it was deactivated in 1868 the light served to warn whaling ships, fishing boats and coastal freighters en route to Providence of sandbars and rocks between Nayatt Point and Conimicut Point, directly across the river. The original 1828 section of the house is the oldest surviving keeper's dwelling in Rhode Island. For a period of twenty-two years after it was deactivated, it continued to be used as a residence for the keeper of another nearby offshore light. The first light was mounted on a freestanding octagonal tower built to the west of the present tower. The keeper lived in a small dwelling nearby which was also constructed in 1828. In 1856 the dwelling was enlarged with a two-story wing, and a second tower, attached to the new addition, was built to replace the original light.

Ida Lewis Rock Lighthouse, Newport Rhode Island

Established in 1854 at the southern entrance to Newport Harbor, Ida Lewis Rock Light is significant for its association with a noted keeper, Ida Lewis. During much of the 54 years she lived at the light, Lewis received national publicity for her numerous rescues of people stranded in overturned boats in Newport Harbor. Now used as the headquarters of a yacht club, Ida Lewis Rock Light serves as a reminder of Newport's maritime heritage in a town whose economy has always been closely linked to the sea. The lighthouse was originally named Lime Rock Light after the rock on which it sits. Between 1854 and the completion of the present dwelling in 1857 there were no accommodations on the rock for the keeper. Captain Hosea Lewis, the light's first keeper, took up residence with his family at Lime Rock on July 29, 1858. Six months later, Captain Lewis was paralyzed by a stroke which left him a complete invalid. Thereafter, his wife and fourteen-year-old daughter Ida, took over the duties of tending the light.

Conanicut Island Lighthouse, Jamestown Rhode Island

Conanicut Island Light, which consists of an 1886 wood frame keeper's cottage with an attached light tower, is the only surviving lighthouse in Rhode Island to be built in the Gothic Revival Style. Although another lighthouse of the same design was constructed in Wickford Harbor four years earlier, it no longer stands. Situated on a point that marks the division of the east and west passages of Narragansett Bay, the light served primarily to guide southbound traffic from the Providence River and Greenwich Bay en route to Newport and the Atlantic Ocean. The light was first lit on April 1, 1886. Originally, the station was equipped with a fog bell but it was replaced in 1900 by a blow siren that sounded a continuous blast. Seven years later, a steam-driven compressed air fog signal building was built to house the horn's compressors. Two other buildings were also constructed on the grounds, an 1897 barn and a 1901 brick oil house.

Bristol Ferry Lighthouse, Bristol Rhode Island

Established in 1855 on the entrance to Mount Hope Bay, Bristol Ferry Lighthouse served to guide ships en route to the textile mills of Fall River. The light was a navigational mark for numerous passenger steamers which, during the middle of the nineteenth century, provided the main form of transportation between the cities and towns on Mount Hope Bay with those on Narragansett Bay, the Providence River, and with other major New England ports outside the state. It is one of three early surviving lighthouses in the state of the type which features a keepers dwelling with an attached light tower. The land on which the lighthouse stands was acquired on October 9^th, 1854, and the tower and dwelling were completed the following year. The lighthouse took its name from a Bristol-to-Portsmouth ferry, which operated from a landing a few yards to the west of the light.

Dutch Island Lighthouse, Jamestown Rhode Island

Established in 1827 as the sixth lighthouse in Rhode Island, Dutch Island Light played a significant role in the history of commerce and transportation in the state. The light was only the second to be built on Narragansett Bay and although the present lighthouse replaced an earlier one on the same site, the station served longer than any other presently deactivated light in the state. The light served to guide ships entering Dutch Island Harbor at the west end of Jamestown, including the Jamestown-to-Saunderstown ferry and was an important navigational mark for vessels trying to avoid Dutch Island while traveling up the Bay's west passage. In 1825 the State of Rhode Island ceded to the United States government land at the southern tip of Dutch Island for establishing a lighthouse. Construction began soon after, and the light was first lit on January 1, 1827. During an 1844 inspection of the light, the Lighthouse Service Superintendant described its condition as "the worst constructed of any in the state." Six years later and again in 1855, it was reported to be in poor condition and badly in need of repair. Instead of undertaking the necessary work, Congress appropriated $4,000 for a new tower and dwelling, both completed in 1857. The earlier structure was then torn down.

New Canaan Railroad Station, New Canaan Connecticut

Built in 1868, the New Canaan Railroad Station is one of the last remaining vestiges of the New Canaan Railroad and is also one of the earliest surviving railroad stations in Connecticut. The accompanying train sheds are rare survivors in the state. Its Gothic-Revival-style architecture is not a mode usually employed in train station design in the state. The Gothic-Revival style structure was located approximately 80 feet east of its current location until the 1880s, when it was moved to its present site and a baggage room was added on the southern side of the station. The easterly canopy was constructed in the 1880s as well, while the westerly canopy was not built until c. 1915. Over time, the interior of the building has been altered to add bathrooms and an office for a taxi company.

Springfield Township School, Ontario Ohio

From when the first schools were established in Richland County in 1820, a pattern of local control over schools had been established. A state law in 1898 permitted the abandonment of local sub-district schools and the education of children in one central township school. With this authority to transport students to a central location, the movement to close one-room schoolhouses began and the townships formally became the unit of organization for schools. A 1904 state law mandated that local district directors relinquish their authority to the township boards. The movement to centralize, however, did not pick up momentum until 1906 when a bulletin entitled "Centralized Schools in Ohio" by the Ohio State University agricultural extension division was published and circulated in large numbers. Another significant change occurred in 1914 when in Ohio the county supplanted the township as the unit of school control. Perhaps most significant about this latter change was that the county board was not restricted to township lines when reorganizing school districts which provided much greater flexibility for addressing educational problems countywide. The legislated transition from local to township and then county organization was one factor contributing to the construction of consolidated schools throughout Ohio, including Springfield Township School in Richland County.

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