{"nrhp_refnum":"91000421","name":"Witherbee Memorial Hall","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Broad St. E of jct. with Office Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Mineville","county":"Essex County","state":"NY","lat":44.08820055900003,"lon":-73.52776296999997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1991-04-22","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A large Shingle Style civic building on Broad Street in the village of Mineville, town of Moriah, Essex County, New York, built in 1893 as a workingmen's club by the Witherbee family's mining company.","why_significant":"The nomination argues it is a well-preserved example of late-nineteenth-century Shingle Style architecture in the Adirondack region and the oldest surviving civic building in Moriah. It also reflects the paternalistic relationship between Witherbee, Sherman and Company and its iron-mining workforce, providing social, educational and health care services.","narrative":"Witherbee Memorial Hall, completed in 1893 on Broad Street in Mineville, is a massive T-shaped building of rubble stone and wood shingle with round corner towers, steep gabled roofs and a recessed balcony with paired Doric columns. The iron magnates F. S. and W. C. Witherbee built it in memory of the founders of Witherbee, Sherman and Company. It housed a kindergarten, cooking school, library, savings bank, hospital and a two-story auditorium with a hammerbeam ceiling. Later it served as a boarding house for young miners, and during the 1913 strike its classrooms lodged strikebreakers. It also acted as the company office after mine collapses and as a school during both World Wars. The architect is unknown. The nomination describes it as the only civic building in Essex County in the Shingle Style and the oldest surviving civic building in Moriah, and it reflects the company's control over mining families' daily lives.","period_of_significance":"1893-1940","architect_builder":"Unknown; theorized to have been designed by company engineers","architectural_style":"Late Victorian/Shingle Style","criteria":["C"],"status_note":"Retains much of its original 1893 floor plan and interior; some alterations include replaced auditorium windows, an enclosed staircase, fire escapes and a modern kitchen and bar area.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:50:44.54329-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/91000421.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/91000421/347d4bbc0e-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/91000421/347d4bbc0e-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"Alex Scrodin","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Memorial_Hall_from_across_the_street.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Alex Scrodin</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Memorial_Hall_from_across_the_street.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75317816","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witherbee_Memorial_Hall","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q8028143"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/essex-county/witherbee-memorial-hall-91000421/"}