Downtown Clinton Historic District

Downtown Clinton is a compact commercial district of about sixteen acres along High and Church Streets in the center of the Massachusetts mill town. Its 31 contributing buildings are mostly brick blocks from the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth century, with a few earlier wood-frame Italianate houses at the northern end. The street grid was laid out in 1848 by civil engineer John C. Hoadley for industrialists Erasmus and Horatio Bigelow. Notable buildings include the Brimhall Building of 1857, the Queen Anne style Oxford Block of 1884 and Peirce Building of 1887, the First National Bank Building of 1881, and the Colonial Revival Holder Memorial of 1904. The district was recognized for its link to Clinton's commercial growth between 1850 and the mid-twentieth century, when the town served as a market center for surrounding farm communities, and for the quality of its late-nineteenth century commercial architecture. Many buildings keep original upper-story detail despite modern storefront changes.