Werner Company Building - Akron, Ohio - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

This building was erected by German immigrant Paul E. Werner in 1895 as an administrative building for his publishing house, the Werner Company. By 1900, the company claimed to be the largest and most complete book factory in America, but legal battles with Encyclopedia Britannica later resulted in a loss of $1 million and the company failed in 1909.

The building is an excellent example of eclectic architecture in German medieval idiom. The building features massive brickwork, steep gabled roofs and large stepped gable walls. The main entrance has an arched doorway accented by large radiating voussoirs, fanlight and flanking buttresses. Alternating bands of brick and stone form voussoirs over the windows. Stone quoins at the corners are a broken continuation of multiple banded courses. A square four-and-a-half story tower, with stone and brick turrets placed at a 45° angle to the rest of the building, is found at the southwest corner. The publishing house was across Union St, but burned down in the 1970s.

Street address: 109 N Union St Akron, Ohio USA 44304 County / Borough / Parish: Summit County Year listed: 1976 Historic (Areas of) Significance: Event, Architecture/Engineering Periods of significance: 1875-1899, 1900-1924 Historic function: Industry/Processing/Extraction Current function: vacant Privately owned?: yes Primary Web Site: [Web Link] Secondary Website 1: [Web Link] Season start / Season finish: Not listed 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   12/28/2009 buffalohiker visited it