Architecture

Thomas Dyer House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 141 Forest Park Avenue in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


This house was built in 1910, and was one of many homes in Forest Park that were designed by G. Wood Taylor, a prominent local architect of the early 20th century. It was originally the home of Thomas and Florence Dyer, who lived here for a few years. During this time, Thomas worked for an advertising company in Springfield, but by the end of the 1910s he had become a dairy farmer. He and Florence moved out of this house and purchased the Kingoke Farm in Sixteen Acres, at the present-day corner of Parker Street and South Branch Parkway. They operated the farm here for many years, and Thomas even served as the city’s police commissioner in the 1930s.

In the meantime, their home here in Forest Park was purchased by Charles N. Bancroft, the traffic manager for the Indian Motocycle Company. He did not stay here long either, though, and was living in Longmeadow by 1930. In 1933, several years before the first photo was taken, the house was purchased by Dr. Robert J. Klein and his wife Della, and they lived here for the rest of their lives, until Della’s death in 1967 and Robert’s in 1972. Since then, the exterior of the house has remained unchanged, and in 1982 the property became part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

Alfred Chapin House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 151 Forest Park Avenue, at the corner of Mountainview Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:

This house was built in 1906, and is one of many large, upscale single-family homes that were built in the Forest Park neighborhood at the turn of the 20th century. It was originally the home of Alfred and Julia Chapin and their three young children, Alfred Jr., Neil, and Julia. Alfred was the treasurer and later president of the Moore Drop Forging Company, a Springfield-based tool manufacturer. He was also an avid tennis player, and served as treasurer of the United States National Lawn Tennis Association.

In 1916, shortly after becoming president of the company, Chapin and his family left this house and moved into a home on Crescent Hill. They subsequently adopted three more children, and by the 1920 census they employed five live-in servants at their new home. In the meantime, their former home was sold to Dr. Robert F. Hovey, a surgeon who worked at the Wesson Memorial Hospital for many years.

During the 1920 census, Hovey was living here with his wife Florence and a maid. Florence appears to have died sometime in the 1920s, because by 1930 he was living here with his second wife, Emma. His mother Lucy was also living here in 1930, and she remained here until her death in 1936 at the age of 98. Emma died in 1934, when she was in her early 50s, and Hovey subsequently married his third wife, Eva Danick.

The Hoveys were still living here when the first photo was taken, and Dr. Hovey remained here until his death in 1954 at the age of 79. The house was subsequently sold later that year, nearly 40 years after Hovey had first moved here. Since then, like so many other historic homes in the neighborhood, it has remained well-preserved, and in 1982 it became part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

Althine W. Clark House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 163 Forest Park Avenue in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


This house was built in 1909, around the time when this section of Forest Park was being developed as an upscale residential neighborhood. It was originally the home of Althine W. Clark, who was in her early 80s when she moved here. Her husband Leonard, a stove merchant, had died in 1904, and she moved into this house with her daughters Addie and Susan, her granddaughter Althine, and a servant. Addie died in 1913, and that same year another one of Althine’s children, Colonel Charles H. Clark, moved in here. A West Point graduate and career Army officer, Colonel Clark lived here for two years after his retirement, until his death in 1915. Althine herself remained here until her death in 1921, after having outlived most of her nine children.

By the late 1920s, the house was owned by Alfred White, a Russian-born tailor. He and his wife Rose had immigrated to the United States in 1905, and they had four children who were living here during the 1930 census. The house was sold around 1933 and again in 1942, when it was purchased by veterinarian Donald M. Snow. He and his wife Eunice were still living here 40 years later, when the house became part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. They finally sold the property in 1987, and 30 years later the exterior of the house remains well-preserved, with hardly any discernible changes between the two photos.

William H. Sargeant House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 169 Forest Park Avenue in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


This section of the Forest Park neighborhood was developed in the first decade of the 20th century, and consists primarily of Colonial Revival-style homes, such as this one on Forest Park Avenue. It was built in 1905 for William H. Sargeant, the vice president of the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company. He lived here with his wife Belle, and the couple had one child, William, Jr., who died in infancy. Belle died in 1922 when she was in her mid-40s, and within a few years William had moved to a new house at 406 Longhill Street.

By the 1930 census, this house was being rented by Kenneth S. Edwards, whose occupation was listed as an assistant sales manager for gasoline pumps. At the time, he was living here with his wife Stella and their two young children, but they moved out sometime around the time when the first photo was taken. Since then, hardly anything has changed with the exterior of the house. It has remained well-preserved, and it is part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

John P. Wilcox House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 17 Ingraham Terrace in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The scene in 2017:


Born in Springfield in 1836, John P. Wilcox was the son of Philip Wilcox, a tinware and stove merchant. Likewise, John became a stove merchant, and in 1861 he married his first wife, Harriet Russell. She died of tuberculosis in 1866, though, and two years later he remarried to Henrietta Willis. By 1870, they were living in this elegant Second Empire-style house at the corner of Ingraham Terrace and Union Street. The location of this house would have afforded them with excellent views of downtown Springfield and the Connecticut River valley, and the value of the property was listed as $40,000 in the 1870 census, equal to over $770,000 today.

John died 1897, and his widow Henrietta lived here until her death in 1912. His only child was Hattie, the daughter of his first wife. She never married, and lived here her entire life, until she died in 1930. By the time the first photo was taken, the house was being rented by Bernard F. Gilchriest, a physician who lived here with his wife Odette and their two children, who were also named Bernard and Odette. They lived here until at least the early 1940s, and the house itself was still standing over a decade later. However, the property last appears in the Springfield Republican, and the house was probably demolished sometime in the 1950s or 1960s. Today, the site of the house is a parking lot for the former Wesson Memorial Hospital, which is visible in the distant left of both photos.

John A. Hall House, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 26 Ridgewood Terrace in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:


This area between Union and Mulberry Streets was once the home of Colonel James M. Thompson, who built a mansion here in 1853. It was situated on a large, beautifully landscaped lot that offered views of downtown Springfield, the Connecticut River, and beyond. Colonel Thompson died in 1884, and about a decade later his widow sold the property to William McKnight, the developer of the city’s McKnight neighborhood. He subdivided the lot, demolished the old mansion, and built a number of upscale houses along Union Street, Mulberry Street, Ridgewood Place, and Ridgewood Terrace.

The Tudor Revival-style house in these two photos was one of the finest in the development. Like almost all of the other Ridgewood homes, it was designed by G. Wood Taylor, an architect who was also McKnight’s son-in-law. It was completed in 1896, and its first owner was John A. Hall, the president of the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company. Born in New York in 1840, Hall had come to Springfield during the Civil War to work in the Armory. After the war, he began working for MassMutual, and despite no prior experience in the insurance industry he soon advanced in the company, eventually becoming secretary in 1881 and then president in 1895.

John Hall married his wife Frances while he was still working at the Armory, and they had two children, Clara and John, Jr. All four of the family members were living in this house during the 1900 census, along with three servants. However, John died in 1908 while traveling overseas in London, and this house was subsequently sold. Two years later, his son committed suicide at the Maplewood Hotel in Pittsfield, at the age of 30. According to contemporary newspaper accounts, he had called a barber to his hotel room for a shave, asked the barber to see the razor, and then used it to cut his throat.

In the meantime, the new owner of this house was Albert Steiger, the founder of the Springfield-based Steiger’s department store. Steiger had immigrated from Germany to the United States as young boy in 1868, and when he was a teenager he began working for a dry goods merchant in Westfield. He eventually opened a store of his own in Port Chester, New York, and in 1896 he opened a second store in Holyoke, followed by a third in New Bedford in 1903. Then, in 1906, he opened what would become his flagship store in Springfield, at the corner of Main and Hillman Streets.

Despite competition from other, more established nearby department stores such as Forbes & Wallace, Steiger’s became successful, and just a few years after opening the store Albert Steiger moved into this mansion on Ridgewood Terrace. He and his wife Izetta had five sons, Ralph, Phillip, Chauncey, Robert, and Albert, Jr. All of them went on to work for their father’s company, and the two youngest also served in World War I. In the meantime, the company continued to expand, opening a store in Hartford in 1919, and by 1924 his stores were bringing in some $15 million in annual sales, equal to over $200 million in today’s dollars.

Albert Steiger lived here until his death in 1938, right around the time that the first photo was taken. In the 1940 census, his son Ralph was living here, along with Robert and Albert, Jr. However, by the early 1950s it was sold and converted into the Ring Nursing Home. It was in use as a nursing home until the 1990s, and has since been converted into a group home for children. Despite all of these changes, though, both the house and the surrounding area have remained well-preserved. Nearly all of the homes that McKnight built here are still standing, and now form the city’s Ridgewood Local Historic District.