Park Square Historic District - Franklinville, NY - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

The Park Square Historic District consists of 21 contributing buildings, a park and the brick paving surrounding it. The District is clearly differentiated from adjacent areas of the village by its predominantly commercial use, the larger scale and higher density of its buildings, and the general orientation of the buildings toward the village green.

Morgan Hall anchors the southeast corner of the historic district and represents one of the district's most distinctive architectural focal points. Clockwise around the square from Morgan Hall, the district includes a row of three continuous late 19th century commercial buildings with cast iron storefronts built in 1892, 1893 and 1881. The southwest corner of the district is anchored by two similarly styled brick commercial buildings. They were built between 1876 and 1880 and continue the historic streetscape from across the street.

West Park Square is less consistent in architectural character, containing a combination of wood frame and brick commercial buildings and also three non-contributing modern buildings. Significant buildings along this stretch include the two-story building at 34 West Park Square, built in 1862 and altered in 1910. 30-32 is a brick building and was built in 1869. It is one of the finest examples of Italiante style commercial design. Similar, but more modest examples are at 26 and 18 West Park Square, built circa 1870-1880. Number 14 is Franklinville's former fire deparment building and was built in 1905.

North Park Square contained two historic buildings. The earlier, which was built in 1828, was a two-story Federal style frame inn. It has since been demolished and remains an empty lot. The First Trust Union Bank building stands alone now on the north side of the park. It was built in 1924 and is the most recent building constructed in the district. To the north up Main Street, is the Blount Library. Built in 1914, the one-story building was a library financed primarily by Andrew Carnegie.

The east side of Park Square includes four contributing buildings. All of them are two stories and were originally designed as commercial buildings. 8 East Park Square is a Neoclassical brick building built circa 1910 and 2 East Park Square is an Italiante brick style building built in 1874. 3 Pine and 10 East Park Square are both wood frame commerical buildings.

The park itself is located at the center of the district. It was laid out and first planted with trees in 1876 and retains its generally elliptical shape. The streets surrounding the park at the northeast and south sides were paved in hard red brick in 1914 and survive in good condition today. West Park Square was also originally paved in brick, was resurfaced with asphalt, but has once again been restored to brick.

Street address: Park Square Franklinville, NY United States 14737 County / Borough / Parish: Cattaraugus Year listed: 1986 Historic (Areas of) Significance: Architecture/Engineering Periods of significance: 1825-1849, 1850-1874, 1875-1899, 1900-1924 Historic function: Commerce/Trade, Landscape: Business, Financial Institution, Park Current function: Commerce/Trade, Landscape: Business, Financial Institution, Park Privately owned?: yes Season start / Season finish: From: 01/01/2007 To: 12/31/2007 Primary Web Site: [Web Link] Secondary Website 1: [Web Link] Hours of operation: Not listed Secondary Website 2: Not listed National Historic Landmark Link: Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   06/03/2009 Wild Bill and Jabber visited it 02/14/2008 Dory The Explorer visited it

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