Posted: 1:51 p.m. Monday, Oct. 7, 2013

A 104-year-old Middletown landmark will possibly be named to the National Register of Historic Places after it was nominated by the Ohio Historic Site Preservation Advisory Board.

The Middletown Big Four Depot, located on Charles Street, was recently recommended to be nominated to the national register, said Tom Wolf, communications director of the Ohio Historical Society.

The National Register lists places that should be preserved because of their significance in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering and culture. It includes buildings, sites, structures, objects and historic districts of national, state and local importance.

Completed in 1909 by the Big Four division of the New York Central Railroad, the Big Four Depot is proposed for nomination for its association with an early 20th-century period of industrial growth and economic prosperity in Middletown, according to the nomination letter prepared by Benjamin M. Riggle, senior historian for Hardlines Design Company of Columbus.

Architecturally, the one-story brick depot with a red tile roof reflects the design influence of the early 20th-century Arts and Crafts Movement and the related Prairie Style in its low, horizontal massing; bands of windows; beamed ceilings; wood-trimmed walls; and fireplace, he wrote. It is the third depot on the site; earlier depots were built in 1872 and 1884. Passenger service to Middletown’s Big Four Depot ended in 1961, and it now houses a gift shop.

A copy of the proposed nomination will be forwarded to the Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places, an official of the National Park Service who oversees the National Register program for the nation. The Keeper’s staff will review the proposed nomination to see whether they concur with the state board that the district appears to meet the criteria for listing on the National Register.

A decision should be made within three months, according to Wolf.

To be eligible for listing on the National Register, a property or district must:

• Be associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history, or
• Be associated with the lives of people significant in our past, or
• Embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period or method of construction, or represent the work of a master, or possess high artistic values or represent a significant, distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction (e.g. a historic district), or have yielded, or be likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.