{"nrhp_refnum":"77001082","name":"West Main Street District","other_names":["See Also:Kent,Marvin,House"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"409-625 W. Main St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Kent","county":"Portage County","state":"OH","lat":41.15386620750007,"lon":-81.36560028888596,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1977-06-17","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Landscape Architecture","Commerce","Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A residential historic district of about 20 acres covering three blocks of West Main Street (409-625 West Main) in Kent, Portage County, Ohio, with houses and two apartment buildings built between 1868 and 1915.","why_significant":"It is the only relatively intact remnant of Kent's former main residential street, most of which has been lost to commercial development. It contains homes of prominent residents including railway founder Marvin Kent, Governor Martin L. Davey and the Wolcott family. It also offers a coherent group of late 19th and early 20th century architectural styles.","narrative":"Three blocks of West Main Street in Kent, Ohio, preserve what remains of the city's former main residential avenue, most of which has since given way to commercial development. The district, about 20 acres in size, holds houses built between 1868 and 1915 in Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, Italianate, Eastlake, Queen Anne and Jacobethan styles, along with two early 20th century masonry apartment buildings. At the east end stands the brick Eastlake mansion of Marvin Kent, founder of the Atlantic & Great Western Railway, completed in 1884. Nearby are the Queen Anne home of Martin L. Davey, later Governor of Ohio, and the 1868 Wolcott House, whose grounds hold the Wolcott Lilac Gardens with more than 100 varieties of French lilac. Some houses are modest and individually undistinguished, but together they form a coherent streetscape. The district was recognized for both its historical associations and its architectural character.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Late 19th century and early 20th century eclectic styles, including Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, Italianate, Eastlake, Queen Anne, Jacobethan and Commercial","criteria":[],"status_note":"Still a residential area, as it was historically; one large house has been converted to a funeral home and two apartment buildings stand within the district.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:53:10.318162-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_OH/77001082.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/77001082/10617cc4c7-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/77001082/10617cc4c7-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 3.0","author":"JonRidinger","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kent_West_Main_1.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">JonRidinger</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:Kent_West_Main_1.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71990989","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Main_Street_District_(Kent,_Ohio)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14716931"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/ohio/portage-county/west-main-street-district-77001082/"}