Waynesville Main Street Historic District

Main Street in Waynesville, Ohio, forms a five-block historic district of 133 resources, 98 of them contributing. The village was platted in 1802 by Samuel Heighway on a terraced hillside above the Little Miami River, and its street grid and named squares still shape the town. Buildings range from early brick houses with Flemish bond and Federal or Greek Revival details to Italianate and Second Empire storefronts, a three-story-towered Italianate house built in 1882, a Queen Anne bank with a clock tower, and Craftsman bungalows, including a 1925 Sears house. Main Street served as the commercial center of a turnpike town and farming area, with homes, taverns, hotels, shops, a township hall, a post office and fraternal halls. Quaker families helped settle and develop the community. Because the railroad and canal bypassed the village, it grew little after the Civil War, which helped preserve its early architecture. The district is significant for that history and for its intact collection of village buildings dating from 1807 to 1951.