{"nrhp_refnum":"90000885","name":"West Brookfield Center Historic District","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Roughly Central and Cottage Sts. from Sherman St. to Lake St. and W., N. and S. Main Sts. from Chapman Ave. to Maple St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"West Brookfield","county":"Worcester County","state":"MA","lat":42.23504550000004,"lon":-72.14133464454972,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1990-06-28","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Industry","Community Planning and Development","Commerce","Agriculture","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A historic district of about 85 acres in the center village of West Brookfield, Worcester County, Massachusetts, roughly bounded by Central, Cottage, and North, South and West Main Streets. It holds 218 contributing resources, mostly houses, along with commercial, civic and religious buildings, a common, and a former factory.","why_significant":"The district preserves a village center whose buildings were all in place by 1938, with outstanding Federal and Greek Revival architecture and examples of every major late 19th-century style. It also reflects local printing and publishing, cabinetmaking and joinery, and growth tied to the new post road and the Western Railroad. The form does not list the criteria letters legibly in the excerpt.","narrative":"West Brookfield Center is a village district of roughly 85 acres in Worcester County, Massachusetts, arranged around a town common with Wickaboag Pond to the west. It contains 218 contributing resources, including houses, barns, shops, churches, Town Hall, a library and a former factory. Most buildings date from about 1800 to 1840 and from about 1855 to 1885, and the district is chiefly Federal and Greek Revival in character, with at least one example of each major late 19th-century style. Joiner James Clark is credited with several local houses and the Classical Seminary building, and Boston architect W. D. Preston designed the Fales House. The village grew through printing and publishing by the Merriam family, through cabinetmaking, and through a new post road in 1827 and the Western Railroad in the late 1830s. All contributing resources were in place by 1938, the end of the period of significance.","period_of_significance":"to 1938","architect_builder":"James Clark (joiner and cabinetmaker); W. D. Preston of Boston (George Fales House)","architectural_style":"Federal, Greek Revival, Colonial/Georgian, Italianate, Second Empire, Queen Anne, Stick, Shingle, Victorian Gothic, Romanesque, Colonial Revival, Craftsman","criteria":[],"status_note":"Most buildings remain in residential, commercial, civic and religious use; the Tomblen House (Windemere) has been rehabilitated for offices, and the district's factory is no longer active.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:04.293945-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/7/7971/63797107/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/90000885.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/90000885/145e0b53b8-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/90000885/145e0b53b8-1600.webp","licence":"CC0","author":"Daderot","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:West_Brookfield_Family_Practice_-_West_Brookfield,_MA_-_DSC04738-001.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Daderot</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:West_Brookfield_Family_Practice_-_West_Brookfield,_MA_-_DSC04738-001.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63797107","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Brookfield_Center_Historic_District","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7984601"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/worcester-county/west-brookfield-center-historic-district-90000885/"}