WPA

Thornton W. Burgess House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 61 Washington Road in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


This house was built in 1896 on the street that was, at the time, named Hawthorne Place. Soon renamed Jackson Street and then Washington Road, it was one of the many new roads in the Forest Park Heights development, which was transforming a sparsely-settled section of the city into an upscale residential neighborhood. The first owner of this house was Faxon E. Nichols, a bookkeeper who purchased the property when he was in his early 20s, around the same time that he married his wife, Nellie. By the 1900 census, they were living here with another couple, William and Rose Baird, while also renting space to two young boarders.

Within a few years, the Nichols family had moved elsewhere in Forest Park, and this house was sold to Thornton W. Burgess, a 31-year-old editor who would go on to become a prominent children’s author. Born in Sandwich, Massachusetts, Burgess came to Springfield as a young man in the 1890s, where he became an assistant editor at the Phelps Publishing Company. For a time, he and his mother Frances were lodgers at 10 Cornell Street, but in 1905 he married Nina Osborne and purchased this house. They lived here with Frances, and like the previous owners they also rented part of the house to another family. However, Nina died just a year later, at the age of 24, from complications after the birth of their only child, Thornton Jr.

It was here in this house that Burgess began creating bedtime stories for his son. He subsequently began writing down these stories, which formed the basis for many of his children’s books. The first of these, Old Mother West Wind, was published in 1910, and introduced the character of Peter Rabbit. Many more books followed, along with thousands of newspaper columns that he would write over he next 50 years. He lived in this house for nearly his entire literary career, until finally moving out in 1955. During this time, he was also active as a naturalist and conservationist, and these themes were frequently found throughout his stories.

In 1911, a year after his first book was published, he remarried to Fannie P. Johnson. She was also a widow, and she moved into this house with two children of her own. They were still living here more than 25 years later, when the first photo was taken, but by this point Thornton’s literary success had enabled him to purchase a second home in nearby Hampden. Built in the early 1780s, his Hampden house was already nearly 150 years old when he bought the property in 1925, and it served as his secondary home for many years. However, Fannie died in 1950, and later in the decade Thornton left this house in Springfield and moved to Hampden permanently, where he died in 1965 at the age of 91.

Coincidentally, Burgess is not the only world-renowned children’s author who lived in the Forest Park neighborhood. A year after Burgess purchased this house in 1905, two-year-old Theodor Geisel and his parents moved into a house about a half mile away from here, on Fairfied Street. The future Dr. Seuss was much younger than Burgess, and their writing careers would only partially overlap, but they did both live here in the Forest Park neighborhood until 1925, when Geisel left to enter college. Today, both houses are still standing, and are now contributing properties in the Forest Park Heights Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

Frank L. Brigham House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 73 Washington Road in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


The Forest Park neighborhood features a number of large mansions from the early 20th century, most of which are located along Longhill Street. On the side streets, the houses tend to be more modest in size, but one of the exceptions is this house, which was built in 1902. Its architecture is a combination of Colonial Revival and English Revival styles, and it was designed by G. Wood Taylor, who was one of the city’s leading architects of the era. Aside from being far larger than most of the other homes in the neighborhood, it also enjoys an idea location at the corner of Washington Road and Pineywoods Avenue, far removed from the busy Sumner Avenue and directly across from Forest Park.

The house was built for Frank L. Brigham, a clothing merchant who was the president of the Springfield-based D. H. Brigham & Company. The store specialized in women’s clothing, and for many years it was located in the old Springfield Republican building, which is still standing at 1365 Main Street. Frank Brigham began working for the store in the late 1890s, and he served as president until his retirement in 1915, when he sold his interest in the company. During this time, he lived here in this house with his wife Frances, and their two daughters, Frances and Dorcas. Frances’s mother, Euretta, also lived here, and the family also employed two-live in servants.

The family sold the house soon after Brigham’s retirement, because by 1916 it was owned by attorney James L. Doherty, who lived here with his wife Harriet and their two sons, James and Louis. He died in the early 1920s, but by the 1930 census Harriet was still living in this house. Both of her sons were also still here, with James working as a stock broker and Louis following in his father’s footsteps as a lawyer. However, the family sold the house just a few years later, and by the time the first photo was taken it was the home of Jacob and Eva Fisher, Russian immigrants who lived here with their two adult children, Milton and Anita, along with Anita’s husband, Abbott Brunelle.

In the nearly 80 years since the first photo was taken, there have been some minor changes, including the removal of the patio at the front of the house and the balustrades atop the porches. Overall, though, the house has been well-maintained, and it still stands today as one of the largest homes in the neighborhood. Along with the rest of the area, it is now part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

David J. Bordeaux House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 82 Pineywoods Avenue in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


This house was built around 1907, at the same time as the similar-looking house next door at 76 Pineywoods Avenue. It was originally owned by David Bordeaux, a photographer who, along with his wife Elizabeth, had previously lived in a different home in Forest Park, at 19 Churchill Street. They had only lived in their Churchill Street home for about 10 years, but they lived here in this house for an even shorter time, because by 1911 they had sold it to another couple who were, coincidentally, also named David and Elizabeth.

David and Elizabeth Birkett were married in Springfield in 1908, and for a few years they had rented a home on Dickinson Street near the “X” in Forest Park. However, by 1911 they had purchased this house, and a year later their daughter Jean was born. David was originally from Scotland, but immigrated to the United States in 1894 and went on to become a buyer for the Forbes & Wallace department store. However, like the previous owners of the house, they did not live here for very long, because by the end of the decade they had moved to Minneapolis.

The house was subsequently sold to Wilson and Lona Hodgdon, who moved in a few years after their marriage in 1915. They were both in their late 40s when they were married, and it was the second marriage for both of them, after having been widowed. Lona soon became widowed for a second time, though, after Wilson’s death in 1918. She continued living in this house afterwards, and worked as a jeweler for True Brothers, a Springfield jewelry store that had been founded by her first husband, Fred L. True, and his brother Harry.

Lona was still living in this house when the first photo was taken in the late 1930s, but she died a few years later in 1942. However, the house has remained well-preserved since then, and it is one of the many turn-of-the-century homes that form the Forest Park Heights Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

Frederick A. Rugen House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 76 Pineywoods Avenue in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


This house was built around 1907, and was originally owned by Frederick A. Rugen, a carpet designer for the Hartford Carpet Company in Enfield, Connecticut. He and his wife Lillie were about 50 years old when they moved into the house, and they were joined by their four children, who were in their teens and early 20s. The three oldest children were all employed by the 1910 census, with their son Wilbur working as an insurance clerk, and their daughters Hazel and Mildred working as a teacher and a stenographer, respectively.

Frederick Rugen lived in this house until his death in 1923, and soon after the house was sold to Michaels H. Grassly, a traveling salesman for a paper company. He remained here with his wife Jessie until around 1937, when they sold the property to Clark and Marion Wilson. Clark worked as an engineer for a telephone company, and he and Marion were living here with their young son, William, when the first photo was taken in the late 1930s.

The Wilson family went on to live in this house for the next three decades, during which time Clark  published a book, Tracing the Telephone in Western Massachusetts 1877-1930, in 1959. After his death in 1966, Marion sold the house, which has remained well-preserved in the nearly 80 years since the first photo was taken. Hardly anything has changed in this scene, and even the tree in front of the house appears to be the same one in both photos. Along with the rest of the neighborhood, the property is now part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

George M. Faulkner House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 53 Florentine Gardens, at the corner of Pineywoods Avenue in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


Most of the homes that were built in Forest Park at the turn of the 20th century are considered to be works of Colonial Revival architecture, although this category encompasses a wide variety of styles. The area’s developers took advantage of this, creating a neighborhood with a remarkable diversity in the designs of the houses. One of the more common styles was a modification of the American Foursquare design, which is seen here in this house on Florentine Gardens. Built around 1903, it has many similarities to its neighbors, such as the house at 43 Florentine Gardens, but it still has unique features of its own.

The first owner of this house was built for George M. Faulkner, an insurance agent who lived here for a few years. However, by 1908 he had moved out, and the house had been sold to William and Lydia Laird. Originally from Vermont, they were in their mid-40s when they moved to Springfield, and by the 1910 census William was working as a floorwalker for a department store. However, Lydia died a year later, and soon after William sold the house and returned to Vermont, where he was living with his brother by the 1920 census.

Following William Laird’s departure, the house was sold to Harry and Florence Sprague, who were living here by at least 1915. Harry was an architect, and he designed a number of buildings in the city, particularly apartment blocks and commercial buildings. He designed the western addition to the Classical High School in 1922, and perhaps his most architecturally significant work was the Tarbell-Waters building at the corner of Chestnut and Bridge Streets. Along with this, he also designed some of the apartment buildings in the present-day Quadrangle-Mattoon Historic District, including the ones at 97 and 127 Spring Street and 82-86 Pearl Street.

By the 1920 census, the Spragues were living here with their 14 year old daughter Dorothy and Florence’s widowed sister, Nettie J. Reed. Dorothy left home in the 1920s, and Nettie died in 1933, but Harry and Florence were still living here when the first photo was taken. They would remain here for the rest of their lives, until Harry’s death in 1950 and Florence’s in 1967. Since then, the house has been well-preserved, and like the rest of the neighborhood it is now part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

William H. Moore House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 43 Florentine Gardens in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


William H. Moore was a conductor for the Boston and Albany Railroad, and in 1901 he moved into this newly-built house in Forest Park, along with his wife Annie and their two teenaged daughters, Elsie and Carolyn. After living here for about a decade, Elsie married Richard W. Upson in 1911, and a year later Carolyn married Harold B. Adams, a young dentist who lived nearby on Spruceland Avenue. However, their mother Annie died several months after Elsie’s wedding, and William subsequently moved to Longmeadow with her and Richard.

After their marriage, Carolyn and Harold continued living here in this house, with Harold commuting from here to his office on Main Street near the corner of Worthington Street. After less than two years of marriage, though, Carolyn died in 1914 from complications following the birth of their only child, Burton. Harold later left this house and moved into an apartment on Sumner Avenue, where he and Burton were living by the 1920 census.

In the meantime, this house was sold to Arthur I. Franklin, a shoe polish factory manager who lived here for a few years with his wife Elizabeth and their three children. In 1922, though, the house was sold again, to Anson and Frances Viets. Anson was the president and treasurer of the Springfield-based New Method Loan Company, and he lived here in this house until his death in 1938, around the same time that the first photo was taken. In the census two years later, Frances was still living here, along with her daughters, Marion and Frances, and her nice, who was also named Frances. She would remain until 1951, when she finally sold the property.

Nearly 80 years have passed since the first photo was taken, and very little has changed in the appearance of the house. As is the case with many similar homes in the Forest Park neighborhood, the decorative balustrade has disappeared from the top of the porch, but otherwise the house remains well-preserved in its Colonial-Revival appearance. Today, like the rest of the surrounding neighborhood, it is now part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.