Most of the buildings in the district are houses built between 1820 and 1930, the period of the city's growth as an industrial center.

To the west of the downtown a residential area developed that followed a typical pattern for industrializing cities.

The upper-class owners, managers, and merchants built high-quality housing on well-proportioned lots on major streets near the centers of commerce and industry, while lower-class workers and functionaries lived in more modest and densely packed areas.

Larger houses in this area were built and occupied by skilled workers, and many of them have since been subdivided into multiple units.

The Christian Science Church (corner of West Main and Winthrop) is a residential-scale structure built in 1920, while the St. Mary's Credit Union Building (135 West Main) is an ahistoric oversized Colonial Revival structure that does not contribute to the area's historic significance.