Center Street Historic District

Center Street in Ashland, Ohio, was laid out in 1846 and developed into the town's finest residential neighborhood. The district includes 44 homes, nearly all residential, built from the 1840s to the 1920s in Greek Revival, Queen Anne, Prairie, Spanish, Italian, Tudor and other styles. Its larger houses, built between 1896 and 1918, were commissioned by industrialists and civic leaders, among them members of the Myers family, whose pump and farm equipment company brought commercial prosperity to the town. Earlier homes, such as those of the Freer, Damp and Cowan families, were built by bankers, millers and physicians. The nomination presents the street as significant for the variety of its styles, the quality and individuality of its major houses, and the way mature trees and the buildings blend together. Most buildings remain well kept and the street looks much as it did around 1915, though the large F. E. Myers house was abandoned in 1973 and faced demolition.