{"nrhp_refnum":"86001013","name":"Ware Center Historic District","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"MA 9 and Greenwich Plains Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Ware","county":"Hampshire County","state":"MA","lat":42.26197650000006,"lon":-72.28170187866101,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1986-05-08","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Community Planning and Development","Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A rural town-center historic district of about 80 acres in Ware, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, strung for roughly nine-tenths of a mile along Route 9. It has 20 inventoried properties and centers on a meetinghouse first sited in 1750.","why_significant":"The district preserves the spatial layout and architecture of Ware's 18th-century colonial settlement, along with aspects of its 19th-century development. Ware Center became the community hub when the meetinghouse was sited near the town's geographic center. It then lost its centrality as manufacturing grew in Ware Village, so it kept its rural character. It is nominated under Criterion C for architecture and Criterion A for local history.","narrative":"Ware Center is a linear village of about 20 inventoried properties along Route 9 in Ware, Massachusetts, between two drumlins. It grew around the First Congregational Meeting House, first sited in 1750 near the geographic center of town and rebuilt in 1799. It was remodeled in the Greek Revival style in 1843. Near the church are the 1872 school, later a Grange hall, and the Pepper-Gould Tavern. Farmhouses and residences, some built for ministers, spread out from there in Georgian, Federal and Greek Revival forms. Fields, stone walls and a lane of sugar maples preserve the rural setting. The village lost its central role in the 1820s to 1840s, when large-scale manufacturing in Ware Village drew away the parish and town functions. Little new building followed, and modern houses mostly stand on older sites. The district was listed for its architecture and for its role in the town's local history.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Ezekiel Baxter of Spencer (builder of the 1799 meetinghouse); Ebenezer Burt (builder of the Pliny Hill farmhouse); otherwise generally unknown","architectural_style":"Vernacular Georgian, Federal and Greek Revival, with some Victorian eclectic and Colonial Revival","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Most historic buildings are in good or excellent condition. All except the church and the former school are single-family homes, and four recent buildings are intrusions. The school is now a Grange hall.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:12:59.727123-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/3/7954/63795403/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/86001013.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/86001013/4f24fc4852-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/86001013/4f24fc4852-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 3.0","author":"John Phelan","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Congregational_Meeting_House,_Ware_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:Congregational_Meeting_House,_Ware_MA.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63795403","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ware_Center_Historic_District","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7969242"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/hampshire-county/ware-center-historic-district-86001013/"}