Bridgewater Historic District

Bridgewater is a river borough of roughly two or three blocks wide, laid out in 1818 on a narrow flat site between the Beaver River and a bluff at the confluence with the Ohio. Its historic district holds 97 contributing buildings and the Bridgewater Bridge, which opened in 1933, along with a canal lock and submerged dam. The district developed as a transfer point where canal boats and river steamboats exchanged cargo after the Beaver Division of the Erie Extension Canal reached the Ohio in 1834. Bridge Street, lined with brick commercial buildings from the Greek Revival and Italianate periods, became the main business street. Market Street holds mostly two-story wood-frame houses built between the 1890s and 1920s, including Queen Anne and Craftsman examples. The William Dunlap Mansion and the Davidson House, both built around 1840, are the most prominent Greek Revival houses in the district.