Boston Mills Historic District

Boston Mills is a small village in the Cuyahoga Valley, Summit County, Ohio, between the Cuyahoga River and the historic Ohio and Erie Canal. The district includes 31 contributing resources, among them houses, barns, a school, a general store built in 1905, a village cemetery, corn cribs, a bridge and the ruin of canal Lock 32, dating to 1827. Most buildings are one-and-a-half or two-story frame structures with gable roofs, and a few are molded concrete block. Most are vernacular, with occasional Federal or Greek Revival details, as in an Upright-and-Wing house from 1835. The village grew first as a canal town, with mills using the waterway for power and shipping. It grew again between 1900 and 1923 as a company town around the Akron and Cleveland Akron Bag Company, which drew Polish immigrant workers. The 1913 flood washed away Water Street and its company houses. The district was listed for community planning and development and for architecture, with a period of significance of 1827 to 1927.