NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form This form is for use in nominating or requesting determinations for individual properties and districts. See instructions in National Register Bulletin, How to Complete the National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. If any item does not apply to the property being documented, enter "N/A" for "not applicable." For functions, architectural classification, materials, and areas of significance, enter only categories and subcategories from the instructions. 1. Name of Property Historic name: _Ishpeming Main Street Historic District_____________ Other names/site number: _N/A_________________________________ Name of related multiple property listing: _N/A______________________________________________________ (Enter "N/A" if property is not part of a multiple property listing ____________________________________________________________________________ 2. Location Street & number: _Generally, Main Street between Front and Division Streets including selected contiguous properties on Front Street and East and West Division Streets_ City or town: _Ishpeming___ State: _Michigan___ County: _Marquette __ Not For Publication: N/A Vicinity: N/A ____________________________________________________________________________ 3. State/Federal Agency Certification As the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act, as amended, I hereby certify that this ___ nomination ___ request for determination of eligibility meets the documentation standards for registering properties in the National Register of Historic Places and meets the procedural and professional requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60. In my opinion, the property ___ meets ___ does not meet the National Register Criteria. I recommend that this property be considered significant at the following level(s) of significance: ___national ___statewide _X_ local Applicable National Register Criteria: _X_ A ___B _X_ C ___D Signature of certifying official/Title: Date ______________________________________________ State or Federal agency/bureau or Tribal Government 1 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 Ishpeming Main Street Historic District Marquette County, MI Name of Property County and State In my opinion, the property meets does not meet the National Register criteria. Signature of commenting official: Date Title : State or Federal agency/bureau or Tribal Government ______________________________________________________________________________ 4. National Park Service Certification I hereby certify that this property is: entered in the National Register determined eligible for the National Register determined not eligible for the National Register removed from the National Register other (explain:) _____________________ ______________________________________________________________________ Signature of the Keeper Date of Action ____________________________________________________________________________ 5. Classification Ownership of Property (Check as many boxes as apply.) Private: X Public – Local X X Public – State X Public – Federal Category of Property (Check only one box.) Building(s) District X X Site X Sections 1-6 page 2 Structure Object Number of Resources within Property (Do not include previously listed resources in the count) Contributing Noncontributing ____22_______ ______6______ buildings _____________ _____________ sites _____________ _____________ structures _____________ _____________ objects _____22______ ______6______ Total Number of contributing resources previously listed in the National Register ____0____ ____________________________________________________________________________ 6. Function or Use Historic Functions (Enter categories from instructions.) RECREATION/CULTURE theater COMMERCE/TRADE business COMMERCE/TRADE professional COMMERCE/TRADE specialty store COMMERCE/TRADE restaurant COMMERCE/TRADE department store COMMERCE/TRADE financial institution SOCIAL meeting hall Current Functions (Enter categories from instructions.) RECREATION/CULTURE theater COMMERCE/TRADE business COMMERCE/TRADE professional Section 7 page 3 COMMERCE/TRADE specialty store COMMERCE/TRADE restaurant COMMERCE/TRADE financial institution SOCIAL meeting hall _____________________________________________________________________________ 7. Description Architectural Classification (Enter categories from instructions.) LATE VICTORIAN/Commercial LATE VICTORIAN/Romanesque LATE 19th and 20th CENTURY AMERICAN MOVEMENTS/Commercial Style OTHER/Commercial Brick ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ Materials: (enter categories from instructions.) Principal exterior materials of the property: _Brick, Stone/Sandstone, Stone/Limestone, Concrete, Wood/Weatherboard, Metal, Vinyl, Terra Cotta, Asphalt, Shingle, Tile Narrative Description (Describe the historic and current physical appearance and condition of the property. Describe contributing and noncontributing resources if applicable. Begin with a summary paragraph that briefly describes the general characteristics of the property, such as its location, type, style, method of construction, setting, size, and significant features. Indicate whether the property has historic integrity.) ______________________________________________________________________________ Summary Paragraph The Ishpeming Main Street Historic District comprises the former commercial heart of the city, its historic central business district. Located along Main Street between Hematite Drive south to Division Street in the southwest portion of today’s Ishpeming, is the city’s traditional downtown, much of it occupied by two-story blocks standing in rows along the sidewalk line. The downtown’s character is framed by its typically brick, Late Victorian buildings, but a closer look reveals some variety of styles, materials, and architectural details. Located along a Main Street axis south from Hematite Drive to Division Street, and including adjacent buildings on intersecting streets, the historic district encompasses about eight acres in total area. The twenty- eight buildings in the district include twenty-two buildings that contribute to the historic district, and six that do not contribute to the historical significance and associations of the historic district. Thus, over three-quarters of the inventoried buildings are historic resources. Section 7 page 4 ______________________________________________________________________________ Narrative Description Ishpeming is located in the Marquette Iron Range, also known to geologists as the Negaunee Iron Formation, a deposit of hematite ore that extends from near the city of Marquette westward nearly to the base of the Keweenaw Peninsula. Discovered in the 1840s, it includes the vicinity of the City Ishpeming. The mines were active beginning in the 1840s and mining continues today (in a single complex, the Tilden Mine). Mining stimulated the growth of Ishpeming and the florescence of its business district. It also provided some of the construction material for the buildings – mine waste – sandstone rubble that was employed in constructing the foundations and rear and often side walls of commercial buildings. The distinctive architectural character of several of the historic commercial district’s buildings is also linked to the region’s red sandstone (Jacobsville and Portage Entry), used as facing and trim in the facades. Perhaps the prime example of the use of red sandstone in Ishpeming (outside the historic district) is the Ishpeming City Hall, at 100 East Division Street, built in 1891, in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, which merited inclusion with a photo in Eckert’s Buildings of Michigan (Eckert 1993: 497) NOTE The first plat of Ishpeming was recorded by Robert Nelson. Nelson is acknowledged by local historians as the “Father of Ishpeming,” because he was associated with the town’s earliest stores, the early Barnum House hotel that burned and was rebuilt as the Nelson House, and the founding of the Ishpeming Bank. Nelson purchased the surface rights to 120 acres of land from the Iron Cliffs Company, filled it in with waste rock from the mines, platted it, and sold the lots for commercial development as the Nelson Plat, also known as the Original Plat of Ishpeming. During the 1880s and 1890s, many of the current, contributing buildings in downtown Ishpeming were erected. Jacobsville sandstone and Portage Entry brownstone, both mined in the Copper Country, the region associated with the western Upper Peninsula and its Keweenaw Peninsula, where early copper deposits were mined. These were popular building materials in the early part of that decade, providing mostly visual interest in buildings constructed primarily of brick. Other native stone was used in rubble constriction in side and rear walls. In the later part of the decade, sandstone fell out of fashion with architects. The darker stone was ill-suited for use in Beaux Arts Classicism and Classical Revival styles increasingly popular from the turn-of-the- twentieth century, which used lighter-toned limestone. Most of the buildings in the city from this era were two stories high. At the turn-of-the-century, the Elks raised twenty-five thousand dollars to construct a new opera house in the city, and the Carnegie Library and a new Methodist