 Areas: 300 Years of Community
Stylish Neighborhoods: Architecture
Industrial Buildings
Meadows Historic Farms: 250 Productive Years
The Comprehensive Cultural Resource Survey of 1985 identified 17 historic areas: distinct groups or clusters of interrelated buildings, structures, landscapes or sites and their surroundings. They show us where and how Greenfield began and grew, where our predecessors lived and worked, and how this proud community built its home. They are listed in approximate order of their development.
The Meadows 1700-Present: A landscape which evokes the appearance of pre-1753 Green River District of Deerfield, it prime soils and brooks support active farms and its hillside forests show the distinctive edge of Massachusetts' Connecticut River Valley.
Nash's Mills: Daniel Nash's early mill settlement was connected to Mill (River) Street in the 1790s. This industrial village was destroyed in the 1960s and its homes moved, but its bricks support many buildings of the 1800s.
Factory Hollow: This mill village on the Falls River was built around saw, grist and woolen mills from the 1780s to the 1870s. The woolen factory tower and some houses remain.
Lampblack Road: An 1800s rural settlement around Moses Bascom's farm. The 1796 lampblack manufactory was located at the Griswold farm.
Deerfield & Washington Street: As Upper and Lower Roads, this area was built for skilled cutlery workers from Germany and England employed at John Russell's Green River Works beginning in the 1830s. Part of the Green River Industrial Heritage Area.
Main (Green River) Street, Bank Row (Clay Hill) and Court Square: The village and commercial center of Greenfield from the 1780s into 1820s with the rise of the river trade and the first mills on the Green River. A National Register of Historic Places district.
East Main-High Street: From the 1820s to the 1860s Greenfield's wealthiest and most prominent citizens built substantial homes in this section. A National Register district.
Mead (formerly Mill), River and Deerfield Streets: Heart of the "Green River Industrial Heritage Area" modern Greenfield's birthplace where 1699 and 1714 mills, the six story mill of 1784, John Russell's "Green River" Cutlery, Newell Snow's brick factory, Wiley & Russell Mfr. Co., Greenfield Tap & Die Corp. and smaller machine shops fueled town growth. Today, the Snow mill, Levi Jones' house, Power Square's houses and cutlery/baby carriage manufactory, churches, and two dams remain in this historic industrial village landscape.
Hope Street: Houses from 1840s and later line this street. Mills were sited there after the introduction of the railroad in 1846, the lumber sheds, planing mill and carpentry shop of the E. Pierce/T.M. Austin and Franklin Co. Lumber Companies, Cutler, Lyons & Field shoe factory, Wells Tool Co. as well as Mohawk Cadillac Co. and Polish American Club.
Meridian Street-Petty Plain: These unusually compatible houses are related to the Russell Cutlery and the 1850s short-lived rail spur.
Grinnell-Congress-Prospect Streets: An area of 1840-60 stylish houses of merchants and managers built when space ran out on East Main Street. By 1800 the Fifth Massachusetts Turnpike came over the hill here and connected the small village to the eastern part of the state.
Central Main Street: This National Register District houses a core of 1870-1920 buildings, most built in the post Civil War years of prosperity, reflecting the character of the county seat.
Fort Square: Site of the 1744 Shubel Atherton fortified house, these well designed, large houses were primarily built between 1910 and 1920, just west of the Millers Falls Tool Company. The Gordon Williams house & carriage barn on Main Street is an outstanding example of Stick-Style design.
Crescent Street-Highland Avenue: The most opulent houses in town built 1884-1895 by industrialists from Greenfield and Turners Falls after build-out of East Main Street. The area also attracted New York retirees and summer residents.
Leonard Street: A short street of well preserved, late Victorian houses built by developer Franklin Pond after 1883 on part of Factory Hollow mill owner, Theodore Leonard's estate. The Leonard house is at 116 Federal Street.
Pierce to Garfield Streets: 1890-1910 an area of large, stylish houses initially planned by railroad engineer Theodore Judah and built by Frank & George Pond, the most active developers of this prosperous period.
Riddell-Hastings-Haywood Streets: Many house styles were built here during the expansion of the 1920s and 30s on the Riddell farm for those who worked at the nearby GTD#2 plant, the Greenfield Machine Co. on Haywood St. and at the F.E. Wells & Sons very important one-story reinforced concrete factory building on Beacon Street.
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