Bushnell-Foos Historic District

Two large Victorian houses on a ridge above East High Street in Springfield, Ohio, make up this district. The John Foos Residence, built in 1870, is a two-story limestone house with carved pilasters, segmental pediments and a bracketed cornice in the Italian Renaissance style. Foos was a manufacturer who built a leading oil mill business and later bought several other companies. Next to it is the Asa Bushnell Residence, completed in 1888 by the firm of H. H. Richardson of Chicago. Built of rock-faced granite with a red tile roof, a gabled dormer, a porch of three arches and a porte-cochere, it is considered an outstanding example of Richardsonian Romanesque. Bushnell was a Springfield businessman who later served as Governor of Ohio. The houses were listed as fine examples of their styles and as reflections of the differing social outlooks of two periods in the 19th century. The Foos house now operates as a catering inn, and the Bushnell house as a funeral home.