{"nrhp_refnum":"80000616","name":"Mission Chapel","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"205 Summer St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Worcester","county":"Worcester County","state":"MA","lat":42.26337885500004,"lon":-71.79507460999997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1980-03-05","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["state","local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A brick chapel with an attached rectory at 205 Summer Street in Worcester, Massachusetts, built in 1854 and designed by Ichabod Washburn for the Evangelical City Missionary Society.","why_significant":"Dedicated in 1855, it is one of the oldest church buildings in Worcester and is an example of the 'Norman' or 'Romanesque in panel' style popular from the late 1840s to the 1870s. It was designed by wire and steel industrialist Ichabod Washburn as a free place of worship for the poor. It later housed an industrial school and served several immigrant congregations.","narrative":"Mission Chapel, at 205 Summer Street in Worcester, is a rectangular brick building from 1854 with a two-and-one-half-storey rectory attached at the rear. Its design follows the Norman style, also called Romanesque in panel, with piers rising to decorative corbelling, arched windows and sandstone lintels on consoles. Ichabod Washburn, founder of Worcester's wire and steel industry, planned the building himself and paid for its construction at more than $14,000. He built it for the Evangelical City Missionary Society so the poor and neglected of the Pine Meadow area would have a free place of worship. Dedicated in 1855, it held a chapel, living quarters for the city missionary and a Sunday school. Later an industrial school taught sewing, and German, Swedish, Armenian and French congregations used the chapel before building their own churches. After commercial use in the mid-twentieth century, the building was partly restored and returned to religious use in 1966.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Ichabod Washburn (architect)","architectural_style":"Italianate elements and mid-19th century \"Romanesque in panel\" (Norman style)","criteria":[],"status_note":"Returned to religious use in 1966 after commercial use in the mid-20th century; currently a Baptist church, with partial restoration in 1966.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:11:53.411177-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/63/7930/63793063/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/80000616.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80000616/12729d5889-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80000616/12729d5889-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Pvmoutside","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mission_Chapel_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:Mission_Chapel_Worcester_MA.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63793063","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Chapel","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6878547"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/worcester-county/mission-chapel-80000616/"}