STATE BOARD RECOMMENDS NINE OHIO NOMINATIONS
TO THE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Members of the Ohio Historic Site Preservation Advisory Board voted on Fri., June 22, 2018, to recommend that nominations for the following properties in Ohio be forwarded to the Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places for her consideration:
Canton / Stark County
Carl & Audrey Lavin House
5240 Plain Center Ave. NE
The Lavin House Is one of two single-family homes in Ohio designed by the internationally known Chicago-based firm George Fred Keck–William Keck–Architects. Beginning in the 1930s, “George Fred Keck, whose brother William later joined him as partner, was at the forefront of residential design incorporating passive solar heating.” Built in 1955 and updated by the Lavins and Kecks in 1968, the house features innovative techniques of solar heating, evaporative cooling, energy conservation and sun screening.
Cincinnati / Hamilton County
Provident Savings Bank & Trust Co.
630-632 Vine St.
An early-20th-century skyscraper in downtown Cincinnati, the Provident Savings Bank & Trust Co. building is associated with the history of commerce and finance in Cincinnati. One of Cincinnati’s largest, long-running regional banks, Provident Bank operated under local ownership for 104 years, with this building as its headquarters until 1967. Designed by local architect Harry Hake (1871–1955), it occupies most of a city block. Built of steel and reinforced concrete faced with brick and terra cotta, it was finished in three stages: 1908, 1916 and 1923. An example of the Italian Renaissance Revival style, the building features lavish marble lobbies.
Cleveland / Cuyahoga County
The Astrup Company Building
2397 W. 25th St.
Danish immigrant William Astrup founded the Astrup Co. in 1876 as a sailmaker for the Great Lakes shipping trade. When ships began relying on steam and diesel power rather than wind power, the company transitioned to making awnings. An innovative hardware system for installing awnings led to five patents for the company between 1889 and 1912. These and other patents the company acquired over its lifetime left a lasting impact on the awning and canvas industry. The Astrup Company remained family-owned for 131 years until 2007, including 125 years at this site. The oldest part of the Astrup Company Building dates to 1919.
Columbus / Franklin County
Hartman Hotel
275 S. Fourth St. & 150 E. Main St.
The Hartman Hotel is associated with the history of hotel development in early-20th-century Columbus, and with Dr. Samuel B. Hartman (1830–1918), founder of the Peruna Manufacturing Co. and inventor of its bestselling product, Peruna. At the turn of the 20th century, the medicinal tonic was one of the most popular and successful patent medicines in the United States. The six-story Hartman Hotel, completed in 1898 and operated as a hotel until 1921, is the last building associated with Dr. Hartman’s medicinal creation and his nationally distributed product.
Cuyahoga Falls / Summit County
Cuyahoga Falls Downtown Historic District
2091–2250 Front St.; 111–24 Portage Trail; 138 Stow
Pioneers drawn to the Cuyahoga River as a source of waterpower founded Cuyahoga Falls along its banks, platting the Public Square on Portage Trail, uphill from, and west of, the river. The area along Front Street and extending along Portage Trail developed as the local commercial center. The proposed historic district comprises 48 buildings. They reflect the history of local commercial growth from 1836, when Cuyahoga Falls was incorporated, to 1954, when Portage Trail was widened to accommodate traffic to the outskirts, local retailers relocated to one of the area’s first shopping centers (the State Road Shopping Center, opened in 1955), and commercial growth along Front Street and Portage Trail largely ended.
Findlay / Hancock County
Boss Manufacturing Co.
317 West Main Cross Street
Workers for Illinois-based Boss Manufacturing made gloves and mittens in this Findlay factory from 1903 to 1961. The company’s largest branch plant, and Findlay’s largest factory at the time, it employed 450 people in 1910, many of them young women who worked long hours for low pay in the period before labor reforms, though their abilities were important to making the gloves. Consisting of three sections built in 1887, 1905 and 1910, the L-shaped brick factory had a railroad spur linking it to the Lake Erie & Western Railroad a few blocks west.
Lakewood / Cuyahoga County
Reidy Bros. & Flanigan Building
11730 Detroit Ave.
Associated with the history of commercial development in early-20th-century Lakewood, this three-story red brick building was once home of the Reidy Bros. & Flanigan furniture store. It was built in 1910 as a two-story building and a third story was added in 1919.
New Madison / Darke County
Knights of Pythias Lodge Hall
118 E. Washington St.
Since 1936, local Masons have met in this two-story Classical-style building of red brick with limestone detail. Built in 1904, it has served as a local center of social activity and entertainment ever since, first as an opera house and meeting hall for the local Knights of Pythias and their auxiliary, the Pythian Sisters, then for Fort Black Lodge # 413 Free and Accepted Masons, and Fort Black Chapter No. 336, Order of the Eastern Star.
Wilberforce / Greene County
Tawawa Chimney Corner
1198 Brush Row Rd.
Associated with two early civil rights leaders whose work helped lay the foundation for later activism by Martin Luther King Jr. and others that resulted in civil rights reforms of the 1960s, Tawawa Chimney Corner is a large frame house on 5.7 wooded acres near Wilberforce. Built in 1896–97, it has features of the Eastlake and Queen Anne styles popular from the 1870s through 1890s. At separate times, it has been the home of two African Methodist Episcopal Church bishops, Benjamin W. Arnett (1838–1906) and Reverdy C. Ransom (1861-1959), both notable in civil rights history. Arnett, who lived at Tawawa Chimney Corner from 1880 to 1906, served in the Ohio House of Representatives in 1886–1887, and led the successful effort to repeal the state’s remaining Black Laws. He was a close advisor to governor and later president William McKinley. Ransom, who lived at Tawawa Chimney Corner from 1933 to 1959, was a member of the Niagara Movement, a civil rights group formed in 1905. A powerful, eloquent speaker and writer who advocated for civil rights for more than 70 years, he was an early advocate of the black social gospel, which applied Christian ethics and social justice activism to the fight against racial oppression. The black social gospel profoundly influenced the mid-20th century civil rights movement.
What Happens Next?
The board made its recommendations on Friday, June 22, 2018, during a meeting held at the Ohio History Center in Columbus. As a result, nominations for each of the properties will be forwarded to the Keeper of the National Register, who directs the program for the U.S. Department of the Interior.
If the Keeper agrees that the properties meet the criteria for listing, they will be added to the National Register of Historic Places. Decisions from the Keeper on all nine nominations are expected in about 90 days.
About the National Register
The National Register lists places that should be preserved because of their significance in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering and culture. It includes buildings, sites, structures, objects and historic districts of national, state and local importance.
To be eligible for listing in the National Register a property or district must:
– be associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history, or
– be associated with the lives of people significant in our past, or
– embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period or method of construction, or represent the work of a master, or possess high artistic values or represent a significant, distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction (e.g. a historic district), or
– have yielded, or be likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.
National Register listing often raises community awareness of a property. However, listing does not obligate owners to repair or improve their properties and does not prevent them from remodeling, altering, selling or even demolishing them if they choose to do so.
Owners or long-term tenants who rehabilitate income-producing properties listed in the National Register can qualify for a 20 percent federal income tax credit if the work they do follows the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation, guidelines used nationwide for repairs and alterations to historic buildings. A similar 25 percent state income tax credit is also offered through the Ohio Development Services Agency, with assistance provided by the Ohio History Connection’s State Historic Preservation Office and the Ohio Department of Taxation.
In Ohio, anyone may prepare a National Register nomination. Nominations are made through the Ohio History Connection’s State Historic Preservation Office. Proposed nominations are reviewed by the Ohio Historic Site Preservation Advisory Board, a governor-appointed panel of citizens and professionals in history, architecture, archaeology and related fields. The board reviews each nomination to see whether it appears to be eligible for listing in the National Register, then makes a recommendation to the State Historic Preservation Officer. The final decision to add a property to the register is made by the National Park Service, which administers the program nationwide.
The Ohio History Connection’s State Historic Preservation Office is Ohio’s official historic preservation agency. It identifies historic places in Ohio, nominates properties to the National Register of Historic Places, reviews federally-assisted projects for effects on historic, architectural and archaeological resources in Ohio, consults on conservation of older buildings and sites and offers educational programs and publications.
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Ohio History Connection
The Ohio History Connection, formerly the Ohio Historical Society, is a statewide history organization with the mission to spark discovery of Ohio’s stories. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization chartered in 1885, the Ohio History Connection carries out history services for Ohio and its citizens focused on preserving and sharing the state’s history. This includes housing the state historic preservation office, the official state archives, and the local history office. The Ohio History Connection also manages more than 50 sites and museums across Ohio.
