Olmsted Falls Historic District

Olmsted Falls Historic District covers the central and northern parts of a suburban Cleveland community in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. It is centered where Plum Creek meets the Rocky River, with sandstone outcroppings, wooded valleys and parks that include stone shelter houses built by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s. The district holds 148 contributing resources, mainly wood-frame houses, along with a town hall, a library, a cemetery and a village green. Its buildings show three phases of growth: rural hamlet, manufacturing village and small residential village. Greek Revival houses are the highlight, including the Grand Pacific Hotel, and the district also includes Gothic Revival, Italianate, Colonial Revival, Bungalow and Dutch Colonial Revival examples. Irregular lots and setbacks, and streets that follow the terrain, reflect gradual growth. The district was listed because it preserves the late nineteenth century core of the town, which neighboring communities lost to postwar development. Rehabilitation of the commercial center and local design review have helped keep its character intact.