Central Square Historic District

Central Square is the commercial and civic heart of Stoneham, Massachusetts, centered where Main Street, laid out as the Medford-Andover Turnpike in 1806, meets Central Street. The district holds 49 buildings and sites, including three prominent 19th-century commercial blocks: the Second Empire Dow Block of 1864, the Italianate Chase Block of 1874 and the wood-frame Odd Fellows Block of about 1870. Churches, a Carnegie-funded library of 1904, a fire station, a 1939 town hall and several fashionable houses add variety. The square rose to importance after the First Congregational Church was built in 1840. Its development tracks the town's shoe industry, which grew from small home shops to large steam-powered factories such as the John Hill Shoe Factory of 1858 at the southern end. Because the town stagnated economically in the 20th century, many older buildings survived, though often with altered siding and storefronts. The district still shows the mix of building types typical of a 19th-century New England town center.