Waverly Canal Historic District

Waverly's old canal district in Pike County, Ohio, is a downtown and neighborhood area shaped by the Ohio and Erie Canal, which reached the town in 1829 and opened through it in 1832. Streets were laid out parallel to the canal, and trade brought hotels, warehouses, shops and homes. Fires in 1858 destroyed many frame buildings, and larger brick structures followed, including the three-story Emmitt House of 1861 and the Pike County Courthouse, completed in 1865 and enlarged in 1909. Other notable buildings include the 1859 German Evangelical church, the Grand Hotel, the Greenbaum Building, and houses such as Bissel Port and the Horvath and Emmitt residences. The canal was closed and filled in 1912. Because industry declined in the early twentieth century, the 19th-century architecture was left largely unchanged, and newer development lies outside the district. The area remains in mixed commercial, government and residential use.