Main Street Historic District

Downtown Greenfield's Main Street district spans about 17 acres around the Town Common, where the old east-west and north-south routes cross. It contains 53 buildings, structures and monuments, most of them brick commercial blocks with shops below and offices or apartments above. Churches, banks and public buildings sit at the four corners of the Common. The oldest survivor is the 1797 Coleman-Hollister House, one of two Asher Benjamin designs in town. Other landmarks include the 1813 First Franklin County Courthouse, the 1827 Allen Block, the 1870 Second Congregational Church and the 1896 Masonic Block. A large fire in 1873 levelled two blocks, and the rebuilding that followed produced much of the district's Victorian character. Greenfield grew into the commercial and political center of a rural county, and the district preserves a dense, urban streetscape that has changed little since the late 19th century, apart from some modern bank buildings and altered storefronts.