McKnight District (Boundary Increase)

Northeast of downtown Springfield, on a broad plateau, lies a neighborhood of about 250 acres and some 884 properties that grew from a purchase of twenty-two acres in 1870. Brothers John and William McKnight, former dry goods merchants, platted the streets, built roughly half the houses and sold the remaining lots with deed restrictions on setback, front fences and minimum construction cost. Most buildings are one- and two-family wood-frame houses from 1880 to 1900, with Queen Anne the dominant style alongside Italianate, Stick, Shingle and Colonial Revival examples. A Romanesque Revival school, several churches and a few commercial buildings serve the area. The district was listed as an expansion of a smaller 1976 district. It is considered significant as Springfield's largest late Victorian middle-class neighborhood, notable for its consistent scale and its well-preserved architectural variety, and for the planning that shaped it. Few buildings postdate 1918.