herr2ck: Springfield Trip, pt. 2

March 2025.

After exploring Springfield’s downtown buildings, I continued with the ones north of Main Street. I’ll start at Limestone Street and proceed westward.

Springfield Post Office + Old Post Office [demolished]

The old post office building. (Springfield News-Sun)

Springfield’s first post office was designed in 1887 by Charles Cregar in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. It has since been demolished, and the site is now overflow parking for St. Raphael’s.

The existing post office was designed by William K. Schilling in the early 1930s, who also redesigned the courthouse across the street. Its Art Deco facade incorporates rich ornamentation and fine materials like granite and sandstone. The aluminum spandrels above the doors are meant to show the scale of the postal service.

The classical influence on Art Deco is pretty obvious here, as the piers and central columns would have likely been in the orders if it was constructed just 10 or 20 years beforehand. Its expression is very similar to late Beaux-Arts and Neoclassical designs.

I had to go to the parking lot across the street to get a shot of the building in its entirety. It is very wide.

The dense central projection:

Art Deco is interesting in that it created both very heavy and very light compositions. Famous buildings like the Empire State Building and Chrysler Building are soaring and vertical, as opposed to the dense Merchandise Mart in Chicago. This post office is an example of the latter trend.

Detail of the roof and carvings:

Note the three reliefs above the central windows, which depict a boat, airplane, and train, representing the ways mail can reach its recipients.

Detail of an eagle:

Springfield News-Sun Building

1950 photo of the News-Sun Building. (Save our News-Sun Building on Facebook)

The News-Sun Building was built for two Springfield newspapers, the Springfield Daily News and Springfield Sun, which later merged into the Springfield News-Sun. It was designed by the firm Schultze and Weaver (best known for the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City) in the Renaissance Revival style. The presses were started by former president Calvin Coolidge right before the onset of the Great Depression in 1929.

Based on the above image, an addition was designed during the 1950s. I think it was added to the rear of the plant, but I’m not fully sure.

The building was vacated by the newspaper in 2014, which moved to 1 South Limestone Street a few blocks south. This left its future in doubt, but it has since been renovated and is in use by small businesses today.

The Renaissance influence is really obvious on the principal facade, which takes on the horizontal palazzo typology:

Detail of the balcony:

Note the various ornamental features, such as the engraved panels, corbels, and heads below the arches.

10 North Fountain Avenue

This little Commercial style building is tucked away between the Lagonda National Bank and Bushnell Building. I couldn’t find any history on it, but given its classical cornice, it was probably built c. 1900 (some realty websites say 1920). The building retains its original windows in some areas, but the remaining original door was removed during a renovation between 2021 and 2022. It mostly recently housed a “paint bar,” but the building is empty today.

24 North Fountain Avenue [demolished]

2007 snapshot of the building from Google Maps.

I couldn’t find anything about this demolished Romanesque Revival building besides that it may have housed the Bismark Bowling Alley (which was also a dead end). It was razed between 2007 and 2017 and originally stood north of the Bushnell Building.

Robertson Building/Elwood Myers Co. [demolished]

Historic view of the factory. (The Robertson Building on Facebook)

Again, I found almost nothing about what seemed like a pretty large and historic factory building. It was built for the Elwood Myers Company before 1920, which made leather goods and metal signs. It seems like the portion along Lowry Avenue dated to before 1900 and was the oldest, while the larger factory wing was built a few decades later. At some point, possibly during the mid-century era, the entrance was redesigned and the building was renamed to the “Robertson Building.”

2007 view of the Lowry Street side. (Google Maps)

The largest website related to this building is some Facebook page related to ghost hunting inside this building after it was abandoned, and it offered no help whatsoever. The Robertson Building was demolished in September 2015 with the intention of being used by a hospital, but the site remains empty today.

Machinist Club/Fire Station No. 2 [missed]

Mural on the side of the building, which seems to depict its original appearance. (Restaurant Guru)

The Machinist Club occupies Springfield’s former Fire Station No. 2, which closed in 1932 during the Great Depression. The stone between the vaulted doorways has a 1902 date on it, making it a very late Romanesque Revival firehouse. It has since been extensively altered and stripped of much of its ornamentation. The Machinist Club opened in 1983 as a private social club.

Google Maps snapshot of the building in 2022.

Clark County Memorial Building/Memorial Hall [demolished]

Historic postcard of the building. (Ohio History Connection)

Springfield’s Clark County Memorial Building, more commonly referred to as Memorial Hall, was built between 1915 and 1916. The Beaux-Arts auditorium was needed for larger audiences as the city grew, and it was built in honor of Clark County’s veterans. It was the home of the Clark County Historical Society from 1926 to 1985, when it moved to the current Clark County Heritage Center. This coincided with the building’s deterioration and it was subsequently closed.

View of the side in 2008. (Historical Markers Database)

A tax levy meant to renovate Memorial Hall was defeated in the mid-1980s, which left the building sitting empty through the remainder of its lifetime. It was demolished in 2010 and the site remains empty today. Some elements of the building were saved, like the Ionic columns, which were installed along the Fountain Avenue bridge over Buck Creek. The Snyder Park Gardens and Arboretum, further west of downtown, includes some of the ornamentation in its green space.

Third Presbyterian Church [missed]

Historic view of the west facade of Third Presbyterian. (Ohio History Connection)

The elaborate Richardsonian Romanesque Third Presbyterian Church stands along North Limestone Street across Buck Creek. I meant to cover it, but ran out of time both days.

Another historic photo looking northeast. (Dayton Daily News)

Third Presbyterian was established in May 1891 from the First and Second Presbyterian Churches, as the north side of Springfield began to grow in size and membership. Its building, designed by Charles Cregar, was dedicated in 1894. Largely Richardsonian Romanesque, it includes a large onion dome possibly inspired by Dome of the Rock. After First and Second Presbyterian merged to form Covenant Presbyterian, Third Presbyterian became known as Northminster Presbyterian. The congregation eventually merged with another and built a different church in the 1970s.

The church in 2010, similar to how it looks today. (Nyttend on Wikipedia)

Third Presbyterian was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 for its notable architecture. The church is currently used by Fellowship Christian Church, which began using the building in 2014.

Part 3 explores the area east of Spring Street along High Street.

Sources:

https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/local/springfield-then-now-the-first-federal-building-first-post-office-and-later-school/1W1sjrJanPWEoSxlWYG28O/

https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p267401coll34/id/4739/

https://www.westcotthouse.org/gps/downtown/locations#load

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=477940781222108&set=a.477940764555443

https://collections.heritagecenter.us/images/upload/PerCatMicrofilmStoryIndex.pdf

https://www.ppai.org/media-hub/100-years-of-family-leadership/

https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/local/robertson-demoliton-could-bring-hospital-expansion/nDmpyNbdnXYjg0ubj0ct6M/

https://springfieldfirejournal.blogspot.com/2017/07/full-strength.html

https://restaurantguru.com/Machinist-Club-Springfield-Ohio

https://digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org/digital/collection/postcard/id/26542/