{"nrhp_refnum":"83000595","name":"Foxboro Grange Hall","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"11-15 Bird St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Foxboro","county":"Norfolk County","state":"MA","lat":42.065727776000074,"lon":-71.25000312099996,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1983-04-21","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Industry","Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A late Victorian commercial building at 11-15 Bird Street in downtown Foxboro, Massachusetts, built in 1897 as a meeting place for the Foxboro Grange, with storefronts on the ground floor.","why_significant":"It is significant for its association with the Foxboro Grange and with the regionally important straw hat industry, which dominated the town's economy. It is also one of Foxboro's few remaining intact 19th-century commercial blocks, combining an upper-floor meeting hall with rentable ground-floor space.","narrative":"Built in 1897 at 11-15 Bird Street, this three-story wood frame building in downtown Foxboro was erected by the Foxboro Grange as a meeting place. The Grange used the second and third floors for 31 years, while a grain store and other small shops rented the ground floor. A tall second-floor meeting room gives the rear section only two stories under a constant roofline. Clapboard siding, a granite foundation and a symmetrical north facade with two storefronts mark the exterior, and changes have been limited mostly to small doorways and fire escapes. In 1937 Francis Peterson, a former employee of the Inman and Kimball Hat Factory, began a hat business here, linking the building to Foxboro's straw hat industry. Although not stylistically distinctive, it survives as an intact example of a common 19th-century type that paired a meeting hall with rentable storefronts, and it recalls the town's agricultural past.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Late Victorian commercial building","criteria":["A"],"status_note":"Occupied and in good condition; first floor stores, second floor offices and a hat shop in the former Grange hall, and two apartments on the third floor.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:11:57.153307-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/62/7963/63796362/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/83000595.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/83000595/5d199243fd-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/83000595/5d199243fd-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 3.0","author":"John Phelan","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Foxboro_Grange_Hall,_Foxborough_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:Foxboro_Grange_Hall,_Foxborough_MA.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63796362","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxboro_Grange_Hall","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5477082"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/norfolk-county/foxboro-grange-hall-83000595/"}