Strathglass Park District

History

The Strathglass Park District, located in Rumford, Maine, encompasses what was once one of the nation's finest early 20th-century mill worker housing complexes. Funded by Hugh J. Chisholm, owner of Rumford's paper mill, and designed by Cass Gilbert, the district originally encompassed a collection of 51 high quality brick duplexes, of 5 similar yet varied syles, which were built in 1901-2 on a series of tree-lined streets, with a small park at the center. As of the district's listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, only one of the Gilbert-designed houses had been completely destroyed and one other suffered fire damage and was converted into a single story building by removing the original roof and upper story. The Rumford Falls Realty Company which had owned and managed the rentals divested itself of the buildings in 1948, with most duplexes being sold to the occupant of longest residency of the two. Soon after and continuing, each half of the duplex was sold off to different owners, ultimately contributing to a lack of collaborative maintenance and eventually creating a look of run-down chaos in the once beautiful housing development.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. The official nomination form is linked under Sources.