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Westfield Center Historic District - Westfield MA
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nomadwillie
N 42° 07.220 W 072° 44.962
18T E 686045 N 4665588
Industrial elements survive, in particular whip factories that include the Sanford Whip Factory, the Westfield Whip Manufacturing Company, the United States Whip Company Complex.
Waymark Code: WM160DP
Location: Massachusetts, United States
Date Posted: 04/07/2022
Views: 1
The Westfield Center Historic District is a historic district encompassing 157 acres (64 ha) of the civic, commercial, and industrial heart of Westfield, Massachusetts. It represents a major expansion of the Westfield Center Commercial Historic District, which included only two blocks of buildings along Elm Street in downtown Westfield. The district includes buildings representing the city's growth in the 19th century as a center of the whip-making industry, and its early years as a center for statewide educational institutions, as well as its growth as a regional center of western Hampden County. The commercial district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008; the expansion and renaming of the district took place in 2013.
The city center is architecturally reflective of much of this history, although buildings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries predominate. Important industrial elements survive, in particular whip factories that include the Sanford Whip Factory, the Westfield Whip Manufacturing Company, the United States Whip Company Complex. The early functions of the normal school are recalled in part by the Westfield Municipal Building (formerly housing that school, and now city hall), and the State Normal Training School, an elementary school built as a training vehicle for teachers in training. Residential neighborhoods developed on either side of the commercial area, portions of which are included in the historic district.
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