Monument Square Historic District

Monument Square Historic District covers roughly 30 acres in the middle of downtown Leominster, Massachusetts. It contains 36 properties arranged around a small triangular common, with civic and religious buildings near the common and commercial blocks along Main Street. Nearly all are red brick with granite trim, two to four stories tall. The buildings range from the Greek Revival Balch Place, the oldest in the district, to Victorian Gothic and Italianate churches and shops, the 1878 Gothic Revival railroad depot, and Neoclassical and Renaissance Revival structures such as the public library, municipal building, Richardson Building, and Mary A. Gallagher Junior High School. The Rialto Theater dates from 1923. The district matters as the commercial and civic center of a city whose comb, piano case, and plastics industries peaked around 1900 to 1920. Storefront alterations and some later infill are noted, but the scale, masonry and design remain largely intact.