{"nrhp_refnum":"80000534","name":"Southbridge-Sargent Manufacturing District","other_names":["Sargent Street Manufacturing District"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Southbridge, Sargent, and Gold Sts.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Worcester","county":"Worcester County","state":"MA","lat":42.25420094900005,"lon":-71.80582072999994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1980-03-05","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Industry","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state","local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A small industrial district in Worcester, Massachusetts, near the railroad junction east of the Boston and Albany, Norwich and Worcester, and New York, New Haven and Hartford lines. It contains three factories built between 1866 and 1892.","why_significant":"The district preserves a sense of the Junction's former industrial character after many nearby factories were demolished. It is tied to two important local industries, machine cards for textile machinery and building materials. The Sargent Card-Clothing Factory of 1866 is one of Worcester's earliest surviving factory buildings and a unique example of a once important building type.","narrative":"Three factory buildings near Worcester's railroad junction make up this district, which dates from 1866 to 1892. The construction of the rail lines in the mid-nineteenth century drew manufacturers to the area, known as the Junction, and it stayed an active industrial center until the mid-twentieth century. Later demolitions left only fragments of that past. The oldest building, the Sargent Card-Clothing Factory at 300 Southbridge Street, is a brick structure with a mansard-roofed third storey and a square tower at its west end. It housed a maker of machine cards for the textile industry. At 5 Sargent Street, the Rice and Griffin factory produced mouldings, doors and architectural ornament. The 1892 Whitcomb Manufacturing Company building at 125 Gold Street is a utilitarian two-storey brick building, and the firm made copying presses and machine tools. Together the buildings represent local card-clothing and building-materials manufacturing, and the properties remain in industrial or commercial use.","period_of_significance":"1866-1892","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Second Empire and utilitarian","criteria":[],"status_note":"Still in use for industrial and commercial purposes; condition described as fair.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:11:54.283803-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/57/7935/63793557/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/80000534.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80000534/6d62007d33-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80000534/6d62007d33-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Pvmoutside","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Southbridge-Sargent_Mfg_District_Worcester_MA.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Pvmoutside</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Southbridge-Sargent_Mfg_District_Worcester_MA.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63793557","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southbridge-Sargent_Manufacturing_District","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7569222"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/worcester-county/southbridge-sargent-manufacturing-district-80000534/"}