Old Main Street Historic District (Additional Documentation)

About this property

The Old Main Street Historic District in Racine, Wisconsin is an area including a section of Main Street and which is roughly bounded by Second St., Lake Ave., Fifth St., and Wisconsin Ave. It is a 17-acre (6.9 ha) area with elements dating back to 1847. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. In 1987, it included 73 buildings deemed to contribute to the historic character of the area, most built during the 1879s to 1920s, and 22 non-contributing buildings. It comprises portions of eight blocks. The Durand and Hill Block at 246 Main St. was built around 1849. It was designed by Lucas Bradley, Racine's first architect, and may have originally been Greek Revival-styled. But it was damaged in the fire of 1882 and probably restyled as then-modern Italianate when it was repaired. It is three stories tall, with four pilasters framing the windows on the upper stories and with a bracket atop each pilaster supporting the elaborate pressed-metal cornice. The building initially housed offices of Henry Durand, a businessman who dealt in land, produce, lumber, coal, and shipping. He also claimed to have issued the first insurance policy in Wisconsin. The McClurg Building at 245 Main St. was begun in 1857, and is the finest of Italianate-style buildings in the district. The four buildings at 320, 322, 324 and 326 Main St. carry a similar design, though they had different owners and were built at different times. All are 2-stories tall, 3 bays wide, with similar cornices, and Italianate styling. The Sebastian Besick building at 320 Main was built first, in 1869, with three round-arched windows. The middle two buildings were built the following year, with very similar designs, except the upper windows are a bit smaller. They are the Peil, Ritter & Schmeisser building at 322 Main and the John Neumann building at 324 Main. The John Liegler building at 326 Main was built much later, in 1901, with smaller windows with the arches flattened. The Henry Werner building at 327 Main St. was built in 1880, a brick saloon and tailor shop an unusual wide bay window on the second story, with accents in red sandstone against pale brick, and only a partial cornice. The Chauncey Hall Building at 338-40 Main St. was built in 1883, a Queen Anne design by E. Townsend Mix. The Thomas Driver and Sons Manufacturing Company at 214 State St. was built in 1888, a cream brick sash and door factory. The F.J. Mrvicka Saloon at 231 Main St. was built in 1891 by the Pabst Brewing Company to promote their beer. It was designed by Arnold Heinen in Queen Anne style, with a wooden bay window on each side of the second story, each bay topped with a pagoda-like roof curving up to a dormer and weather vane. The gable between is elaborately decorated. In the 1920s the facade was reworked in a half-timbered style to fit the German restaurant that operated there.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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