herr2ck: Leviathan

March 2025.

This monster of a building goes by many names, and its massive footprint is over nine times as long as it is wide. I have heard the following names: Municipal Building, City Building, (Old) City Building and Market, (Old) City Hall, and Clark County Heritage Center. I’ll refer to it as the latter, since that is its current moniker.

The Clark County Heritage Center is located at 117 South Fountain Avenue in downtown Springfield, Ohio. It is bordered by North Market Place and Myers Daily Market to the north, South Market Place to the south, Fountain Avenue and the site of the Arcade Hotel to the east, and Center Street to the west.

History

Historic photo of the City Building c. 1920-1930. (Clark County Historical Society)

In 1884, a resolution was passed that allowed citizens to vote for or against the construction of a new city hall building, which at that time was housed in an “old, ratty, unsanitary market house.” The vote succeeded, and excavation began in 1888.

The Clark County Heritage Center was completed in 1890 as Springfield’s city hall and market. It was designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style by Charles Cregar, a local architect, and cost $250,000. Cregar described it as a union of Romanesque and “Venetian” architecture. It has a wood frame clad in limestone and brick. The first floor was used as the market, while the second and third housed the various city offices within. Interestingly, City Hall itself doubled as an opera house.

A source notes that downtown activity was centered on the Clark County Heritage Center due to its program. This makes sense considering it used to be centered around dense city blocks, not on its own island surrounded by parking lots today. It also explains that Springfield was, at that time, the second-largest industry center in Ohio, behind Cleveland.

Looking southwest at the facade c. 1970s. (Library of Congress)

The building was perceived to be outdated by 1919. I’m sure the style had something to do with it, since during that time Beaux-Arts architecture was popular; but Springfield’s government changed to a city manager/commission form in 1914, and the original council chamber became functionally unnecessary. The originally large rooms began to be subdivided into office space.

By the 1970s, when the Clark County Heritage Center was documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it was in poor condition. The original windows under the large first-floor vaults were replaced by wooden boards (these were extensions of office space), the tower’s roof was removed, and it appeared rather run-down. The city government moved to the new SOM-designed City Hall in 1979, and the police department left a year later.

These conditions likely remained until 2001, when the Clark County Historical Society moved in. The building was renovated, resulting in the replacement of the windows and removal of the fire escapes. They built an annex to the southwest side before 2007, which serves as additional exhibit space.

Photos

I’m using a lot of shots from both days, since I deliberately took fewer the second time around due to already having decent ones from the first day, mainly details. My “cloudy day” establishing shot is exposed better, so we’ll start there, which looks southwest from about the State Theater:

No doubt about it, this is one loooong building…it is 462 feet long, compared to 50 feet wide. With this massive footprint, it is expressed as a series of similar, yet distinct, masses. Each area served a different purpose when it was built.

Let’s start with the east side, which seems to have been designed as the principal facade:

This portion is dressed in limestone and is much more three-dimensional. The massive 150-foot clock tower is easily the most recognizable feature. The rest is nothing to scoff at, though. Here’s the whole thing from the front:

I love arches so much, hence why Romanesque-influenced styles are my favorites. These three have clear Richardsonian influence in their massive voussoirs on squat pilasters.

Detail of the foliate capital and smooth voussoirs:

The second and third floors:

I like the turrets on the corners that break the box. A good arched window is also something to appreciate, too. I think every single window here is distinct from the others--not very practical, but rather whimsical.

Detail of the second floor’s central projection:

The third floor’s arched window:

Craned my neck for this one…it looks like a really anachronistic spaceship:

Another angle of the clock tower:

Honestly, it rivals a lot of county courthouse towers. It really goes to show how prosperous Springfield was at the time.

I know I cut off a bit of the top here…sorry!

It’s subtle, but there’s still decoration here. The spandrels between the clock face and frame are engraved, the opening is spanned by engaged columns, and the arches of the vents have similar columns and capitals. I also like how the turrets of the facade are repeated up here at a smaller scale.

This storefront on one of the sides appears to have either restored or period-correct windows:

I’m not as big a fan of the massive, mullion-less glass windows beneath the front arches--these are more appealing and accurate to me.

Next is the west facade, which is largely identical minus the height of the tower (25 feet shorter at 125 feet) and its lack of a clock. In my infinite wisdom and bias towards shooting horizontally for easier reading, I clipped the tower off and didn’t take any other pictures of it besides details.

Similar things going on with the base here:

I’m really happy with how these next detailed shots came out, even though they’re more or less the same as my other ones. We’ll start with a view of the engraved lintel on the second floor:

Note how it reads “CITY HALL” here instead of “CITY BUILDING” like the other side. I love this richness of texture, seen in the ornamentation, geometry, and three-dimensionality of this area. Here’s a closer look at that vegetal band of ornament between the first and second floor:

The lichen adds a touch of realism, don’t you think?

The third floor’s arched window:

The voussoirs here are rough, and the arch is emphasized by a rounded course of stone with small leaf springers. Those two small rectangular windows appear original, since they have wood muntins and period-appropriate colored glass.

Let’s move to the long side of the Clark County Heritage Center. The facade is almost identical on both sides, but I took pictures of the north face on the cloudy day and the south face on the sunny day. Here are all the features compressed into one shot:

The sides are also mostly symmetrical, so some of the features repeat once you cross the middle of the building. The portions immediately adjacent to the east and west entrances have a highly regular and orthogonal appearance:

Note the door that punches through the spandrel, which was where the original fire escape led to. Two dormers and chimneys project from the simple hipped roof here.

Next is this tower that projects slightly:

Based on the appearance of the windows, I’m guessing that this area houses the building’s stairs. The roof’s peak follows this projection and emphasizes its tower-like nature.

The middle section is the most exuberant and is dominated by massive arches across the facade:

I believe the double-height windows mark the place where the council chamber/city hall once met. Their stained-glass windows add a nice touch of polychromy to an already-colorful facade.

Detail of the portion immediately east of center:

I love the various materials in use here. It would have been prohibitively expensive to use stone across the entire facade, so brick was likely employed to save costs. However, the limestone is still used for the springers, string courses, and voussoirs of the gable windows. The gutters and flashing are copper and add a nice touch to the otherwise earth-toned facade.

Detail of the vaulting and surrounding ornament:

The central projection employs similar tactics to the principal facades, but it is still meaningfully different:

The central arched window, coffered panels, and portal (visible in the following photo) are identical. However, the fenestration is the most obvious difference. For whatever reason, this section’s middle window is different from the one on the north side.

Here, instead of “CITY BUILDING” or “CITY HALL,” the carving reads “CITY MARKET”:

I’d imagine this is where the market entrance was originally, but now it is the exhibit area of the Heritage Center. Note the checkerboard pattern of rusticated and smooth ashlar in the spandrels above the vaulting.

The north facade’s sign is more worn--the “C” and “I” have cracked off: