Amherst Central Business District (Boundary Increase)
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
2011. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
“(Provide at least one paragraph for each area of significance.) Developmental history/additional historic context information (if appropriate) A number of hostelries served the town of Amherst over the course of the development of the Amherst Central Business District. Those that thrived during the century included the Hygeian Hotel (later known as the American House Hotel), which operated from ca. to and was demolished in 1909, and Wood's Hotel, which operated from to 1892, before becoming an annex to the town's largest and longest-serving hotel, the Amherst House.”
Narrative Statement of Significance, National Register nomination for Amherst Central Business District (Boundary Increase). Machine-read text.
one of 32 National Register listings in Hampshire County · listed in 2011 · category: District.
National Register reference number.11000585- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Fires near this property
58 since 2002
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 58 fires within 5 miles of Amherst Central Business District (Boundary Increase) between
2002 and 2020, burning about 53 acres in total. 3 started naturally. None was recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
30
Recreation and ceremony
9
Equipment and vehicle use
8
Debris and open burning
7
Natural
3
Railroad operations and maintenance
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 10,176 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Amherst Central Business District (Boundary Increase) between 1781 and
1975: 4,231 Animalia, 3,538 Plantae, 2,182 Fungi, 132 Chromista, 80 Protozoa, 12 Unrecorded, 1 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A V Osmun, A. Albee, A. Allen and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
14 workings within 5 miles of Amherst Central Business District (Boundary Increase): 6 producers, 6 past producers, 1 occurrence, 1 unknown.
6 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Brick Clay, Clay, Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Amherst, the town this property stands in, in 42 storm reports between 1995 and 2023: 26 thunderstorm wind, 12 hail, 3 lightning, 1 flash flood.
The reports record 6 injuries. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Five solar panels were blown from the roof of the three story Knowles Engineering Building at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. In addition, six people were injured when two event tents were blown down at a barbeque at the university. Construction fences and a tree were also downed.
Lightning struck a home on Ridgecrest Road, setting a fire. Much of the home was damaged by the fire and the resulting smoke and water. Firefighters were able to put out the blaze, but the home is unlivable.
Trees, large tree limbs, and wires were downed by thunderstorm winds. Multiple roads were closed in Granby due to downed trees blocking them. One tree was downed onto a house along Route 202 in Granby.
In Amherst, trees and wires on North and East Pleasant Streets and Sandhill and Sunderland Roads were downed by thunderstorm winds. Trees and wires on Route 9 and Hartness Road in Pelham also were downed by thunderstorm winds.
At 9:24 AM EST, the Hadley Police Department closed the eastbound lanes of State Route 9 near the University of Massachusetts due to flooding. Local media also reported that University Drive in the adjacent part of Amherst was flooded.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
Named in the fire insurance atlases
Sanborn surveyors printed an index of the
town's establishments at the front of each atlas. This property is named in
one, read straight off the scanned sheet.
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Statement of significance
Applicable National Register Criteria (Mark "x" in one or more boxes for the criteria qualifying the property for National Register listing.) A B Property is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history. Property is associated with the lives of persons significant in our past. (Expires 5/31/2012) Coamy ahi sa MA Areas of Significance (Enter categories from instructions.) ARCHITECTURE COMMERCE COMMUNITY PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT Property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction.
D Property has yielded, or is likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history. Period of Significance 1744-1930 (Amherst Central Business NRDIS) Significant Dates 1926 - construction of the Lord Jeffery Inn Criteria Considerations (Mark "x" in all the boxes that apply.) Property is: A Owned by a religious institution or used for religious purposes. B removed from its original location. C a birthplace or grave. D a cemetery. E a reconstructed building, object, or structure. F a commemorative property. ;less than 50 years old or achieving significance within the past 50 years.
Significant Person (Complete only if Criterion B is marked above.) Cultural Affiliation Architect/Builder [William] Putnam and [Allen Howard] Cox Period of Significance (justification) Please see Amherst Central Business District National Register nomination (1991) Criteria Considerations (explanation, if necessary) 3 NPS Form 10-900-a (Rev. 8/2002) OMB No.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 11000585, 61 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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