Colrain Center Historic District

Colrain Center is the village core of Colrain, Massachusetts, where Main, Greenfield and Jacksonville Roads meet at a small triangular common. The district holds 91 resources on about 30 acres, including houses, churches, stores, a library, a school, and war memorials. Most buildings are vernacular versions of 19th century styles, ranging from Federal to Queen Anne and Neoclassical, and slate roofs and weatherboard siding are common. Two 1830s brick churches, one Greek Revival and one Gothic Revival, anchor the common. Memorial Hall, built in 1895 for Civil War veterans, and the 1908 Griswold Memorial Library, designed by McLean and Wright of Boston and given by a local cotton manufacturing family, are the main civic landmarks. The village grew with farming, textile mills and an electric railway opened in 1896. Several hotels once stood beside the common, but fires destroyed them, and that site remains vacant. Some buildings beside the common are condemned.