Geneseo has a remarkably well-preserved 19th-century streetscape, with Victorian architecture embodying a picturesque style advocated by architect Andrew Jackson Downing.

[2] Geneseo was founded in 1790 by William and James Wadsworth, whose descendants exerted a significant influence on the development of the community.

The town served as a market center for the surrounding rural agricultural areas in the first half of the 19th century, and was boosted economically by the establishment of a state normal school (now SUNY Geneseo) on a campus west of the village's commercial district.

[3] The district includes Geneseo's historic commercial center and its most refined residential neighborhood, plus the 102.8-acre (0.416 km2) estate of the Wadsworth family.

The district's buildings are stylistically somewhat diverse, with Italianate and Queen Anne Victorian styles of the second half of the 19th century dominating.