{"nrhp_refnum":"02001455","name":"Bedford Township Hall","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"30 South Park St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Bedford","county":"Cuyahoga County","state":"OH","lat":41.389849095000045,"lon":-81.53510915799995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1975-05-27","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":[],"significance_levels":[],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A three-story brick Second Empire township hall at 30 South Park Street in Bedford, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, built in 1874-1875 and now used as a museum by the Bedford Historical Society.","why_significant":"The nomination calls it an excellent example of a provincial variant of the Second Empire style, and its three stories make it more ambitious than the average town hall in the Western Reserve. It was also the civic and social center of Bedford, with township offices, an opera house auditorium and fraternal lodge rooms. The areas of significance checked are architecture, political and social/humanitarian.","narrative":"Bedford's former township hall, at 30 South Park Street, is a three-story brick building in the Second Empire style, completed in 1875. It is a rectangular block with a stone foundation, a steep mansard roof with pedimented dormers, a bracketed cornice and a wooden tower and cupola. Township voters authorized bonds in 1874 for an $8,000 hall, but the final cost reached $15,000 with furnishings. Frank D. Marble designed it and David Law of Willoughby built it. The first floor held township offices, the second floor was an opera house for lectures, debates and entertainments, and the third floor served the Masonic Lodge and other fraternal groups. After the township was dissolved in 1951, the City of Bedford used the building until 1963. It then stood vacant until the Bedford Historical Society acquired it and restored the exterior between 1965 and 1967, rebuilding the cupola from the original drawings. It now serves as a museum.","period_of_significance":"1874-1875","architect_builder":"Architect Frank D. Marble; builder David Law of Willoughby; foundation laid by Al Spafford","architectural_style":"Second Empire","criteria":[],"status_note":"Excellent condition, altered, on its original site; exterior restored 1965-1967 and now used as a museum by the Bedford Historical Society. It stood vacant after the city left in 1963.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:53:10.08477-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_OH/02001455.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"04000712","name":"Bedford Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/ohio/bedford-historic-district-04000712/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71987737","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":null},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/ohio/cuyahoga-county/bedford-township-hall-02001455/"}