Hoosick Falls Historic District

Hoosick Falls Historic District covers the downtown commercial core of a village on the south bank of the Hoosic River in Rensselaer County, New York. About forty buildings stand within it, mostly brick and stone blocks with shops on the ground floor and housing or storage above, along with a few wood-frame houses. Most date from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and show Italianate, Second Empire, Georgian Revival, Eastlake and Stick-style design. The village grew on the water power of the nearby falls, first through cotton mills and then through the Walter A. Wood Mowing and Reaping Machine Manufactory, which by 1890 employed over 2,000 local residents and was widely celebrated for its harvesting machines. The Wood Block at John and Main Streets served as the company's business headquarters. Although the factories are gone, the commercial center survives with little alteration, preserving the look of a prosperous manufacturing town around 1900.