{"nrhp_refnum":"77000198","name":"Center Village District","other_names":["See Also:First Church of Christ, Lancaster"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Irregular pattern along Main St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Lancaster","county":"Worcester County","state":"MA","lat":42.45690550000003,"lon":-71.67582997724134,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1977-09-15","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A historic district of about 254 acres in the center of Lancaster, Worcester County, Massachusetts. It runs about eight-tenths of a mile north along Main Street from the Sprague-Vose Bridge and has 88 numbered buildings, including seventy-one private residences and seventeen public buildings.","why_significant":"The district is presented as a good example of a New England town that kept its nineteenth century character in an essentially untouched rural setting. Its significance rests on the quality of several buildings, chiefly Bulfinch's Fifth Lancaster Meeting House (First Church of Christ Unitarian) and A.W. Longfellow's Town Hall. The unified vernacular and high-style buildings together form an architecturally significant unit.","narrative":"Center Village is the historic core of Lancaster, Massachusetts, stretching about eight-tenths of a mile along Main Street north of the Nashua River. Eighty-eight numbered buildings surround a rectangular town green, including seventy-one houses and seventeen public buildings. Styles range from Federal and Greek Revival to Italianate, Renaissance Revival, Georgian Revival and Colonial Revival. Its centerpiece is the 1816 meeting house by Charles Bulfinch, now the First Church of Christ Unitarian, regarded as a masterpiece of church design. Boston architect A.W. Longfellow designed the 1908 brick Town Hall, and Herbert Hale designed the 1904 Center School. Lancaster was settled in 1643 and incorporated in 1653, and the railroad arrived in 1849, bringing rapid growth and many small businesses. Most of those businesses are gone, and the center is now mainly residential. The district was listed for the unity of its wood-frame houses, civic buildings and rural setting, which keep a nineteenth century New England character.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Charles Bulfinch (First Church of Christ Unitarian, 1816); A.W. Longfellow (Town Hall, 1908); Herbert Hale (Center School, 1904); Arland Dirlam (Tercentenary Building, 1953)","architectural_style":"Federal, Greek Revival, Gothic and Italianate detail, Renaissance Revival, Georgian Revival, neoclassical and Colonial Revival","criteria":[],"status_note":"Marked as occupied with mixed uses, including private residence, commercial, educational, religious and government. The town center has taken on a residential character as most early small businesses have closed.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:11:54.034486-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/78/7974/63797478/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/77000198.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/77000198/f56007e264-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/77000198/f56007e264-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 3.0","author":"John Phelan","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:First_Church_of_Christ,Lancaster_MA.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">John Phelan</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:First_Church_of_Christ,Lancaster_MA.jpg"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"79000379","name":"Centre Village Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/massachusetts/centre-village-historic-district-79000379/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63797478","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_Village_District","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5059443"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/worcester-county/center-village-district-77000198/"}