Boneyfiddle Commercial Disrict

Boneyfiddle is the old commercial heart of Portsmouth, Ohio, covering about 35 acres and nearly all of the town Henry Massie platted in 1803. Its blocks hold Italianate storefronts with cast-iron detail, large hotels such as the 1871-72 Biggs House and the 1899-1900 Portsmouth Hotel, and a scattering of Greek Revival and Federal houses, mostly along Front Street. The First Presbyterian Church of 1849-50 is a visual anchor. The district is tied to the city's rise after 1832, when Portsmouth became the southern end of the Ohio and Erie Canal, and to river trade and the nearby iron-producing region. Business activity shifted northeast after a new post office was built in 1892, so the older streetscape changed little afterward. Surviving buildings recall shoe factories, a brewery, hotels, Ohio's first department store of its kind in Portsmouth, and the homes of bankers, builders and industrialists who shaped the town's economy.