Gustavus Center Historic District

Gustavus Center is a small crossroads hamlet in Trumbull County, Ohio, where Routes 193 and 87 meet. About 25 buildings, shaded by mature trees, face a four-part green and are surrounded by open farmland. Josiah Pelton of Connecticut settled the area in 1800, and it grew into a nearly self-sufficient farming community with mills, a tannery, a foundry and a cheese trade. Most of those enterprises have vanished, but the houses and institutions remain. The Greek revival buildings include the 1832 George Hezlep House, the 1840 Farmers' Exchange Store, a fraternal hall, two churches built by Alfred Morey in the 1850s, and an eclectic 1892 Town Hall. Smaller vernacular houses line the road toward Kinsman. Hard roads arrived in 1914 and the automobile drew commerce elsewhere, so the Center escaped later development. The district was listed because it preserves the look of a 19th-century Western Reserve township center, with only a few modern intrusions.