Boom Town Historic District

Along West Wooster Street and several intersecting streets in Bowling Green, Ohio, a neighborhood of about 95 two-story houses preserves the look of the city's late nineteenth-century boom years. Most are frame, with some brick, and many have wrap-around porches, brackets, turned posts and carriage houses. Styles include Italianate, Queen Anne, Eastlake and Colonial or Georgian Revival. Two forces of growth shaped the area: Bowling Green's selection as Wood County seat, with the move completed around 1870, and the 1886 oil and gas discovery nearby, which set off a second wave of construction. The district was chosen as the most intact and coherent group of homes from that period. Its houses are described as among the best preserved collections of Victorian and Edwardian domestic architecture in Northwest Ohio. Non-contributing buildings include heavily remodeled older houses, newer garages and a c.1950 church annex.