{"nrhp_refnum":"79001790","name":"Main Street Buildings","other_names":["Starett &amp","Fried Block","Bushnell Building","Wren's Department St"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"6--14 E. Main St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Springfield","county":"Clark County","state":"OH","lat":39.92458017300004,"lon":-83.80959953999997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1979-03-02","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A complex of three commercial buildings (four structures sharing party walls) at 6-14 E. Main Street in Springfield, Clark County, Ohio: the Starrett & Fried Block, the King building, and the Bushnell Building, dating from about 1871 to 1893.","why_significant":"The Bushnell Building is the most refined of the group, designed by Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, successors to H. H. Richardson, in an eclectic mix of Beaux Arts and Second Renaissance Revival with Richardsonian touches. The Starrett & Fried Block is the last surviving iron-fronted building in Springfield. Together with the narrow King building, the group is among the last traces of the downtown's earlier commercial development.","narrative":"Three connected commercial buildings on East Main Street in downtown Springfield, Ohio, preserve a cross-section of nineteenth-century storefront design. The Starrett & Fried Block, built about 1878, has a three-part iron front with Italianate brackets and Eastlake ornament, and it is the last iron-fronted building in the city. Next to it stands a narrow three-story brick building remodeled in the 1890s, typical of small shopkeepers' structures. The five-story Bushnell Building, commissioned by Asa S. Bushnell and designed by Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, combines brownstone, buff brick and terra cotta in a Beaux Arts composition with Richardsonian touches. Its interior originally held a bank, a dry goods firm, offices and a Masonic temple. Ground floors have been heavily modernized, though upper facades remain largely intact. The group was valued as one of the last surviving pieces of roughly 150 years of commercial building in downtown Springfield, much of which had recently been demolished.","period_of_significance":"1871-1893","architect_builder":"Unknown (Starrett & Fried Block and King building); Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge (Bushnell Building); built for Asa S. Bushnell","architectural_style":"Italian Renaissance with Eastlake ornamentation (iron-front block); Beaux Arts with Second Renaissance Revival detailing and slight Richardsonian touches (Bushnell Building)","criteria":[],"status_note":"Altered: first floors modernized for retail use; upper floors of the iron-front block and the King building are empty and used for storage; the Bushnell Building interior was converted to a department store.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:53:12.206926-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_OH/79001790.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"100006049","name":"Springfield Downtown Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/ohio/springfield-downtown-historic-district-100006049/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71987050","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":null},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/ohio/clark-county/main-street-buildings-79001790/"}