Canal Fulton Historic District

Canal Fulton's historic district covers roughly 71 acres on the east side of the Tuscarawas River and the old Ohio-Erie Canal bed. It holds about 90 buildings, structures and sites, including wood-frame dwellings, brick commercial blocks, three churches, three bridges, a municipal park and a one-and-one-half-mile stretch of canal that is still water-filled. Buildings date from the 1840s to the early 1900s and fall into two groups. Wheat-era houses and shops, many modest vernacular frame or log buildings, cluster along early routes such as Canal and Cherry Streets. After coal mining took hold in the 1870s, Italianate commercial blocks, industrial buildings such as the Fulton Drop Forge, and Queen Anne, Gothic Revival and Colonial Revival homes along High Street were added. The district was listed because this mix of buildings shows how the canal, farm trade and mining shaped a small Ohio town. A local ordinance and review commission help protect the area.