The Center Street Historic District in Ashland, Ohio, was nominated to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. This residential neighborhood encompasses approximately 16 acres and contains 44 homes representing various architectural styles from the 1840s through the 1920s. The district was officially received on December 30, 1975, and entered into the National Register on June 18, 1976.
Location and Boundaries
The district is located in Ashland, Ohio (Ashland County) in the 17th Congressional District. The boundaries begin at the midpoint of Center Street and Samaritan Avenue, proceeding west along Samaritan Avenue to the rear property line of 1016 Center Street, then north along rear property lines to 414 Center Street, east across Center Street, and back to the starting point.
Architectural Significance
The district represents an architectural expression of prosperity spanning multiple generations. The homes exemplify diverse styles including Greek Revival, Early Gothic Revival, Queen Anne, Prairie, Spanish, Italian, and Tudor architecture. From its inception, Center Street has been inhabited by the town's more prosperous residents, including bankers, physicians, merchants, and industrialists.
Notable Historic Homes (1896-1918)
F.E. Myers House (726 Center Street, 1896)
This three-story structure built of heavy rock-faced stone shows the influence of H.H. Richardson and Chateauesque builders. Notable features include a three-story turret with a "candle-snuffer" roof, a two-story colonnaded portal with second-story gallery, high pinnacled gables, and rounded additions contributing to its castle-like appearance. Unfortunately, the house was abandoned and ransacked by 1973, with plans for demolition to extend parking facilities for the Good Shepherd Home for the Aged. The house served as the district's focal point due to its size and central position.
Samuel H. Grabill House (413 Center Street, 1902)
A three-story frame structure featuring a two-story Ionic colonnaded portal with circular verandas on both sides. This immense house includes an extended carriage entrance and pavilion on the north side. While converted into apartments, the exterior remains unchanged. The Ohio Novelty Company owned the property at the time of nomination.
John C. Myers House (910 Center Street, 1908)
William V.B. Topping House (421 Center Street, 1908)
A square-shaped house with orange tile roof and third-story gables on the front and south side. Constructed with brick and contrasting vertical siding, creating a polychromatic quality. The house continued as a one-family residence inhabited by Mr. and Mrs. Stuart Smith at the time of nomination.
T.W. Miller House (934 Center Street, 1914)
This T-shaped house displays Spanish characteristics including stucco surface, rear courtyard, and a drawing room with vaulted ceiling, gold inlay, and overlooking galleries. Both front wings have low-pitched hip tile roofs with broad overhang and bracketed cornice. The central block features a frontispiece with gablet, arched doorway and windows. In 1969, the Miller family gave the house to the Ashland Hospital Association, which expanded the building in the rear, though it was only occasionally used by hospital personnel.
P.A. Myers House (502 Center Street, 1915)
Constructed with limestone and brick, this three-story house displays Italian influence with a rambling, horizontal quality. Features include a large attached garage and entrance pavilion on the south side, one-story bays on both sides of the central entrance, a third-story roof dormer, and slate roof of various colors. Since 1960, Trinity Lutheran Church has owned the house. The church designers carefully matched roof materials to create harmonious blending. The first floor furnishings remain intact with diligent care.
J.L. Clark House (622 Center Street, 1915)
Featuring Tudor design, the facade has two two-story bays, each crowned with stonework gallery. Built with brick and stone accents, with a two-story entrance extending from the north side with glass canopy. The Good Shepherd Home for the Aged acquired the building in 1963, adding a large rear addition. The second and third floors fell into disrepair, though first floor furnishings were partially intact with several rooms converted to offices.
Earlier Historic Homes (1846-1861)
Jonas Freer House (503 Center Street)
Greek Revival design with central block and symmetrical recessed wings. The central portion has a third-story gable and decorative frontispiece with consoles and hood. Brick construction.
John Damp House (531 Center Street)
Frame house with recessed north wing, double-bracketed cornice (denticulated), and carved lintels on the second story. Plain frontispiece with pilasters but no hood. Facade has third-story gable.
Jacob Cowan House (414 Center Street)
Showing Greek Revival characteristics with elaborate frontispiece featuring gablet and Ionic columns. Three third-story roof dormers, each with gablet, pilasters, and denticulation matching the cornice. Brick construction with south wing addition. Maintained by the Ashland County Historical Society along with its carriage house.
Randolph Freer House (431 Center Street)
A three-story frame building with central three-story turret, A-roof, imbricated siding on upper portion, and open veranda on first and second stories. Narrow house with rear additions.
Mid-Period Homes (1862-1894)
William G. Frazee House (602 Center Street)
Brick construction with bracketed and denticulated cornice, carved wooden lintels, and veranda with projecting hood, elaborately carved gablet, cushion columns, and shed roof. Inhabited by Mrs. Thomas Dexter, granddaughter of Frazee.
J. Banning House (717 Center Street)
Three-story frame house with mansard roof with dormers and tall pointed-arch doors inside a now-enclosed veranda.
Slocum-Ferrell House (831 Center Street)
Two-story frame house with central block, recessed symmetrical wings, and hip roof with deck. Bracketed and denticulated cornice. Ornate veranda on both wings.
J.H. Heltman House (834 Center Street)
Irregular and ornate with second-story turret, hip roof, and central gable with veranda-like galleries on second and third stories. Complex imbricated siding pattern and denticulated cornice. Queen Anne characteristics.
Post-1900 Homes
George Freer House (841 Center Street, 1902)
Three-story frame house with veranda extending to north side featuring cushion columns and denticulated cornice. Hip roof and elaborate third-story roof dormer with ogee arch.
John Stockwell House (933 Center Street, 1922)
Stone house of English design with thatchy-appearance roof and stovepipe chimney. Contains a stained glass window reportedly salvaged from ruins of Rheims Cathedral after attack by Big Bertha.
Historical Context and Significance
Town Development
Ashland was originally called Uniontown and established in 1815. Center Street, the main artery going southeast from town, was laid out in 1846. As late as the 1880s, the southern parts were still a cowpath, requiring residents to fence their yards. By the 1890s, the street had been well paved, and by the early 1900s it had become the town's finest residential area and true neighborhood.
The Myers Family Legacy
Francis and Philip Myers were "poor farm boys" born in Ashland County who became the town's most significant industrialists. F.E. Myers began his career as a traveling salesman of farm machinery and opened his own small store on Center Street in 1875. Philip Myers invented a double-acting force pump in 1879 and secured a patent. Together they manufactured the pumps in the store's basement until demand required them to erect their first factory unit in 1885, the F.E. Myers and Brother Company.
Philip Myers went on to invent a hay unloading tool, rolling barn door hanger, and secured around 100 patents total. By 1896, when the F.E. Myers house was built, the company was manufacturing ladders, pulleys, handles, and lawn swings, with branch offices in Africa, Asia, Central and South America. F.E. Myers also persuaded railway lines to connect routes with Ashland and served as president of the Cleveland Southwestern and Columbus Railway.
The Myers family maintained four residences within the district. F.E. Myers originally owned a frame house on the site where his son John C. Myers built the Prairie style house in 1908. John C. Myers served as company president from 1933 until 1952. P.A. Myers lived at 414 Center Street until building the Italian style house at 502 Center Street in 1915. His son Guy C. Myers lived in the Cowan house until 1932.
Other Prominent Industrialists
Jesse Lewis Clark: Born in a log house in Ashland County, Clark first worked as a traveling salesman for F.E. Myers. In 1894, he bought a half interest in Dr. Gilbert Hess's stock food business for $250. As chief salesman, he drove a buckboard throughout ten counties selling stock food and cattle remedies. By 1915, the Hess and Clark company manufactured a complete line of veterinary medicines marketed throughout the United States. Known for his philanthropy, J.L. Clark built Ashland's Good Samaritan Hospital in 1915, stipulating that no sick person, regardless of poverty, should ever be refused care.
Thomas W. Miller: A native of Summit County, Ohio, Miller established a rubber manufacturing company in 1896 in partnership with several men in Rochester, New York. In 1903, the company built a plant in Ashland, and since 1904 operated as the Faultless Rubber Company. Miller married Helen Myers (F.E. Myers' younger daughter) in 1908. They lived at 713 Center Street before building the Spanish style house at 934 Center Street in 1914.
Samuel H. Grabill: Son of a Bavarian immigrant, Grabill was reared on an Ashland County farm and known as a progressive farmer. He was a principal stockholder and vice-president of the Star Telephone Company, which by 1915 aimed to "place a telephone in every home in Ashland" and operated exchanges in many area towns. S.H. Grabill resided at 413 Center Street until 1933. His grandson Samuel Donley, raised in that house, resided in the John Stockwell house at 933 Center Street.
William V.B. Topping: In 1901, Topping established the Safety Door Hanger Company, manufacturing a patented door hanger and track for factories and barns invented by J.H. Burkholder of Ashland. The Topping family originally inhabited a small frame house where the present Topping house at 421 Center Street was built in 1908.
Earlier Residents: Bankers, Merchants, and Professionals
Jonas and Randolph Freer: Brothers who organized the Farmers Bank of Ashland in 1874, previously working as stock and grain dealers. They built two of the district's older homes at 503 and 431 Center Street. Randolph Freer's sons George and Charles, also bankers, built homes at 841 and 847 Center Street in 1902.
John Damp: Born in England where he learned milling, Damp built a mill near the north end of Center Street along Town Run in 1869. His house at 531 Center Street stands on the north corner of what was then called Pine Street, descriptive of a pine grove no longer evident.
Joseph Brinton: A railway agent who bought his home from Amor Aken, who owned a large tract of land in south Ashland. His daughter Mary Brinton Tubbs wrote an account of the neighborhood in the 1880s during the 1930s, which served as a source for this nomination.
William C. Frazee: While serving as clerk of common pleas during the 1870s, Frazee built his home at 602 Center Street. He later established a furniture and undertaking business in partnership with Eli Wallack (who lived at 432 Center Street), which survived to the time of nomination.
John Ferrell: Around 1880, Ferrell bought the Eli Slocum land and house at 831 Center Street on the south corner of Ferrell Avenue. His granddaughter Mrs. Clifford Neal lived in the house on the north corner at 819 Center Street, built in 1906 by her father H.A. Mowrey, an Ashland photographer.
W.G. and J.H. Heltman: W.G. Heltman served as mayor of Ashland from 1894 until 1902 and is credited with securing the town's waterworks. He lived at 513 Center Street. Originally Heltman and Eli Wallack were partners in a grocery business (1859-1863), which he later continued with his son J.H. Heltman. J.H. Heltman established his own grocery in 1886, which operated for 45 years. He lived at 834 Center Street.
Architectural Attribution
Vernon Redding of Vernon Redding and Associates in Mansfield, Ohio, is credited with building the houses of P.A. Myers, S.H. Grabill, George and Charles Freer, as well as several other Center Street houses and many of Ashland's industrial and commercial buildings. Born near Ashland in 1866, Redding began his career with Weary and Kramer, an Akron architectural firm, and worked in New York City as that firm's head draftsman. In 1896, he established his firm in Mansfield. Vernon Redding and Associates' activities extended throughout the United States, and Redding was a member of the American Institute of Architects.
District Character and Preservation Status
The district represents a flowering and brief renaissance in architecture. The homes reflect a period of opulence no longer existing and, at their humblest, a quiet gentility already rare. The district is significant not only for the variety of styles it contains but also for the high quality of each major home, the individuality of each, and the harmonious blending achieved with the help of the district's many trees. The district is, in essence, an architectural work of art.
Interrelationships of family and business contributed to the neighborhood quality of the Center Street Historic District. The Myers, Clark, and Miller families continued to live in Ashland, though their companies, still Ashland's largest manufacturing plants, had in recent years been purchased by larger corporate interests located elsewhere. The period in American history represented by the district had indeed passed, though perhaps not yet fully analyzed or appreciated.
Condition and Concerns
At the time of nomination in 1975, the homes were generally well-maintained, with one exception. The district remained much as it was in 1915 when most building was completed. However, vulnerability appeared to lie in the very magnificence of the homes. The F.E. Myers house, having deteriorated and been abandoned since 1973, faced probable demolition, suggesting potential threats to other homes in the district.
Classification and Status
The district was classified as containing multiple private residences, with some commercial, museum, and religious uses. Properties were primarily occupied, with restricted public access. The district was in good condition overall, though altered from original state. All structures remained on their original sites.
† Adapted from: >Alta Sims, Mrs. Thomas Dexter, Mrs. Clifford Neal, and Mr. Robert Thornburg, nominatioin document Center Street Historic District, 1975, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.
Street Names
Center Street