East High Street District

East High Street in Springfield, Ohio, holds a group of five houses that together show how architectural taste changed between the 1850s and 1888. The Charles M. Clark House is an altered Italianate residence that may be the oldest. The Rinehart-Bowman House has a limestone front, and the Ellen Ludlow Bushnell House is a brick home of about 1869-70 with Italianate and Renaissance details. The John Foos House, begun in 1870, is a limestone Italian Renaissance mansion that was completed in 1875. The Asa Bushnell House, built in 1887-88, is a Richardsonian Romanesque building of rock-faced granite designed by Robert H. Robertson. The street became fashionable after about 1869, when successful manufacturers and merchants built here, and by 1871 three of Springfield's most important businessmen lived within one city block. Asa Bushnell later served as Governor of Ohio. The district is listed for the contrast among its houses and for what they show about the values of their owners.