Village Hobby Shop

The Village Hobby Shop is a historic building in the village of Mechanicsburg, Ohio, United States. Built on Main Street (now State Route 29) in the late 19th century, it is one of the village's oldest extant commercial buildings, and it has been named a historic site.

Village Hobby Shop
Front and southern side
LocationN. Main St., Mechanicsburg, Ohio
Coordinates40°4′19.8″N 83°33′23″W
AreaLess than 1 acre (0.40 ha)
Built1880 (1880)
Architectural styleItalianate
MPSMechanicsburg MRA
NRHP reference No.85001894[1]
Added to NRHPAugust 29, 1985

History

Mechanicsburg was settled in 1814,[2] but it initially grew slowly; the 1830 census found just 99 people in the village.[3]:14 Businesses were well established on Main Street downtown by 1840,[3]:37 but little survives of that period's commercial district,[4] as multiple great fires afflicted the community. While some of these fires harmed the village by destroying important businesses, including a major factory on South Main, others ultimately benefited the community by destroying ramshackle buildings and forcing the construction of better structures.[3]:43 Following the Civil War, Mechanicsburg entered into a boom period, and the Village Hobby Shop was one of numerous commercial buildings erected during the period.[4] Mechanicsburg had always served as the commercial center for farmers in the nearby countryside, but the boom of the late nineteenth century saw its commerce expand substantially; by 1890, one could buy drugs and jewelry downtown, as well as groceries and dry goods.[5]:5 The Hobby Shop building was typical of the period; built in 1880, it was home to Trader's Bank and to Schetter's Jewelry Store at different times.[1] Starting in 1901 and continuing into the 1910s, the building was home to John Brinnon's Meat Market.[3]:68 By 2010, the building had become home to a beauty parlor.[6]

Architecture

The Village Hobby Shop is a thoroughly brick building; its walls, its foundation, and its decorative elements are all brick masonry.[7] Numerous architectural elements combine to make it a clear example of the Italianate style of architecture, including the massive arches over the large display windows, a small cornice over the entrance and windows, and the imitation arcade situated underneath the bracketed upper cornice.[4]

Preservation

In 1985, the Village Hobby Shop was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, qualifying both because of its architecture and because of its place in Ohio's history. It was part of a multiple property submission of approximately twenty buildings,[1] scattered throughout the village in such a low concentration that a historic district designation was not practical.[5]:8 Many of the twenty buildings were residences or churches, but the Hobby Shop was one of several commercial buildings in the group, along with Hamer's General Store, the Magruder Building, the 1830 Lawler's Tavern, and the four buildings of the Mechanicsburg Commercial Historic District.[1]

gollark: I got 4 diamonds one time, then the TBM ran out of fuel and I left.
gollark: Yes.
gollark: Thoughts? Is this *too* cheaty?
gollark: Given that our slag production makes *about* one per ten seconds (probably less), and 12.8 units of 5 coal would be needed for 1 diamond, we could get one diamond every two minutes or so.
gollark: I figured out a terrible, terrible (in the sense of being slightly cheaty) way to get diamonds:1. hook up slag production to thermal centrifuge (there's a 1 slag -> tiny gold dust + 5 coal dust recipe)2. feed coal to compactor (makes compressed coal balls; without this it would need flint, but that's easy too)3. compress the coal ball into a ... compressed coal ball4. compress the compressed coal balls into a coal chunk (usually this would require obsidian, iron or bricks, but the compactor skips that too - obsidian is automateable easily but with large power input, though)5. compress coal chunk into diamond

References
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. The History of Champaign County, Ohio. Chicago: Beers, 1881, 596.
  3. Ware, Joseph. History of Mechanicsburg, Ohio. Columbus: Heer, 1917.
  4. Owen, Lorrie K., ed. Dictionary of Ohio Historic Places. Vol. 1. St. Clair Shores: Somerset, 1999, 124.
  5. Recchie, Nancy. National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Mechanicsburg Multiple Resource Area. National Park Service, December 1984.
  6. Photograph in infobox.
  7. Village Hobby Shop, Ohio Historical Society, 2007. Accessed 2013-02-21.
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