River Street Historic District

Along the Susquehanna River in Wilkes-Barre, a residential district of three-story brick and brownstone houses lines River Street and Franklin Street, with a civic and financial core at the intersection of West Market and Franklin Streets. The houses were built mainly between about 1860 and 1920 for wealthy industrialists and merchants during the anthracite coal boom, and most were designed by architects. Their styles change from Greek Revival to High Victorian Gothic and Queen Anne, reflecting the owners' wish to keep pace with New York and Philadelphia tastes. The George Bedford home of 1875 is described as the city's best known High Victorian building. Four churches on Franklin Street and the Beaux-Arts banks at West Market Street give the district its skyline and civic character. The Luzerne County Courthouse, completed in 1909, is a massive Beaux-Arts structure of local sandstone. The district is significant for its architecture and for what it shows of the city's social and economic history from the 1860s to the 1920s.