East Main Street Historic District

East Main Street in Richfield Springs, New York, forms a tree-lined corridor of 19th-century houses, civic buildings and parkland east of the village center. The district has 67 contributing and 25 noncontributing resources, including 31 historic residences, two boarding houses, a church, a theatre, a post office and the village waterworks. The houses date from 1836 to about 1910 and show Italianate, Second Empire, Queen Anne, Shingle, Stick and Chalet designs. Bella Vista, built in 1886 and designed by W. Niver of Fultonville, is the best Shingle style example. Richfield Springs grew as a resort around its mineral springs. Spring Park occupies the site of the Spring House Hotel, which burned in 1897, and holds a rustic bandstand of 1904. The waterworks, begun in 1879, reflect the public works needed for a large summer population. The 1941-1942 post office, built with Public Works Administration funds, is the most recent historic building in the district.