Graff's Market
Why it's listed
Graff's Market is a three-story wooden commercial building on a stone foundation in the Borough of Indiana, Pennsylvania. Its west front is a cast iron facade in the High Victorian Italianate style, four bays wide with eight windows and two doors, and a nameplate identifies its maker as G. W. Mesker of Evansville, Indiana. Market construction took place between 1887 and 1892, with the cast iron facades added between 1897 and 1903. The ground floor holds a grocery with a meat section and hexagonal tile floors under a decorative moulded metal ceiling, and the upper floors are apartments. The building is regarded as the only known surviving cast iron facade in the borough, where such fronts were once more common. The Graff family, later the Graff-Muller family, has operated the business here since 1880. Original butchering tools and a marble-topped counter remain in use, which gives the property its commercial importance.
Significance in brief: The nomination argues that Graff's Market has the only known extant cast iron facade in Indiana Borough, a surviving example of a once more common local building type. It also cites the business's long family ownership at the site, dating to 1880, and its surviving butchering equipment and marble-topped counter as an example of the small specialty shops in the borough's commercial history.
Machine-generated summary. This summary was generated by a language model from the official nomination document and has not been reviewed line by line by an editor. It may contain errors. Check the source document before relying on any detail. Source: nomination document (PDF) · National Archives catalog entry. NRHP reference 80003504, listed December 4, 1980. Summary generated October 2026 (model claude-haiku-5-5, prompt v1.1-2026-10-29, confidence medium).
Key facts
| Address | 27 N. 6th St., Indiana |
|---|---|
| County | Indiana County |
| Listed | December 4, 1980 |
| Reference number | 80003504 |
| Resource type | Building |
| Period of significance | 1880-1930 |
| Architectural style | High Victorian Italianate |
| Criteria |
|
| Areas of significance | Commerce, Architecture |
| Level of significance | Local |
| Status (as stated in the nomination) | Cast iron facade restored and repainted in 1979 by the owner; upper stories used for apartments. |
| Acreage | 0.1 |
| Coordinates | 40.62360, -79.15044 (NPS GIS) |
What listing means for this property
For an income-producing building, listing (individually or as a contributing building in a district) is the gateway to the 20% federal rehabilitation tax credit on qualified rehabilitation costs, often stackable with state credits. Work claiming the credit must follow the Secretary of the Interior's Standards and be approved in advance.
Listing does not restrict a private owner acting without federal money or permits; where federal funding or licensing is involved, Section 106 review applies.
General information, not legal or tax advice. Rules change; confirm with your State Historic Preservation Office or a qualified adviser.
Sources and further reading
- National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places database (snapshot May 2026), reference 80003504.
- Nomination form (PDF, National Archives) — catalog entry
- Wikipedia article (used for cross-checking only; text not reproduced here)
- Wikidata Q5592448
- This listing as JSON
Last updated October 2026. Found an error? See the editorial policy for how to report it.