Downtown Willoughy Historic District

Downtown Willoughby, Ohio, is a roughly nine-block commercial core where Euclid Avenue meets Erie and River streets in a Y-shaped intersection. The district holds 66 contributing buildings and one contributing site, built between 1850 and 1940. Most are small, two-story brick commercial blocks with ground-floor shops and offices or apartments above, concentrated along Erie Street. Most are vernacular rather than architect-designed, and many have altered storefronts. Other buildings include houses, schools, churches, a former railroad waiting room and an electrical substation. At the center is Point Park, a triangular green with a Civil War memorial unveiled in 1885, which still resembles the scene Henry Howe sketched in 1846. The district was listed for its role as a trading center serving communities in three counties, a role that lasted until suburban malls eclipsed it in the 1960s, and for its cohesive street plan, public park and period architecture. Five later or heavily altered buildings do not contribute.