Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Building and Madison Theater
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. 8 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1915.
From the record
“The Mansfield Memorial Museum, originally Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall, is in downtown Mansfield, Ohio. It was founded in 1887 and opened to the public in 1889 as the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall.”
Wikipedia article Mansfield Memorial Museum, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 68 National Register listings published here for Richland County · listed in 1980 · category: Building.
National Register reference number.80003214- 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.
Then and now
1915 to 1994
The ground this property stands on, surveyed
79 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are
United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.
The biggest little man you ever saw! He doesn't weigh much, but he uses every ounce of the weight he has, a scrapper all the way. The big guard from Columbus who weighed exactly two pounds more than twice as much as Harold found himself played to a stand still. Harold couldn't move him, of course, but no more could he move Harold. So Harold stood Gibral¬ tar while the Columbus plunges smashed and broke upon him. This is Mansfield's first year of football and his last year of high school. M. H. S. should regret both these facts.
A COMPREHENSIVE resume of the development of the public school system of Mansfield from its re¬ mote cabin form of but a few scholars, to tile present day high school of more than eleven hundred members, calls for a historical background of Richland County to illustrate the prodigy of this growth.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 3 fires within 5 miles of Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Building and Madison Theater
between 2002 and 2005, burning about 2 acres in total. None 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
Debris and open burning
2
Smoking
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 754 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Building and Madison Theater between 1835 and 1975: 491 Plantae, 253 Animalia, 10 Fungi.
12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by Berra, T. (Tim), C F WALKER, Chase, H. (Hazel) 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
1 working within 5 miles of Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Building and Madison Theater: 1 producer.
All of them still produce. What was taken out: Iron. 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
Mansfield, the town this property stands in, in 108 storm reports between 1994 and 2026: 54 thunderstorm wind, 43 hail, 7 flash flood, 2 tornado.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. 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.
Thunderstorms dumped one to three inches of rain on portions of Richland County in a short period of time. Three inches of rain was measured by spotters in Mansfield in less than two hours. Widespread urban and lowland flooding occurred across the county with the Mansfield and Ontario areas most severely affected. Water eight feet deep was reported in an underpass on the east side of Mansfield with up to three feet of water on many other area roads. Several vehicles were stranded in the flood waters. In Mansfield, a basement wall collapsed causing extensive damage to a home. Several hundred other homes in the county experienced basement flooding.
Thunderstorms dumped two to three inches of rain on Mansfield during the evening hours. Widespread street and lowland flooding occurred as several streams and creeks left their banks. A library had to be evacuated due to flooding in a ground level lobby and parking garage. Several streets in the downtown area flooded stranding many vehicles. Several people had to be rescued from their vehicles. Water up to eight feet deep was reported in an underpass just east of downtown.
Thunderstorm winds tore sections of roofing off of two large buildings and downed many trees on the northwest side of Mansfield. A windshield was also blown out of a car.
Thunderstorms winds estimated at 60 mph blew the roof off of a house along Kentucky Avenue on the north side of Mansfield. The roofs of two other homes were partially blown off.
An EF0 tornado touched down in rural Richland County about two miles north northwest of Lucas. The initial touchdown occurred near the intersection of Crimson and Mount Zion Roads. The tornado then continued southeast for around four tenths of a mile before dissipating. The damage path suggests that the tornado may not have been in constant contact with the ground. The damage path was no more than 20 yards in width. A barn was leveled by the tornado and two other buildings were damaged. Four cattle were injured by flying debris. Debris from the destroyed barn was found about three miles away from the location of the touchdown.
Thunderstorm winds estimated at 58 mph did considerable damage at a racetrack near Mansfield Lahm Airport. A 52 mph wind gust was recorded at the airport at 7:09 p.m. Two sections of temporary bleachers were toppled and destroyed.
Power pole fell onto a delivery truck about two-miles southwest of Mansfield. Farther downstream (i.e. about two-miles SSW of Mansfield), a large tree fell onto a house and punctured its roof.
A small tornado touched down east of Mansfield near State Route 430 in Mifflin Township. It remained on the ground for only a short time and downed numerous trees.
Thunderstorm winds knocked down a scoreboard at a baseball field located near the intersection of State Route 13 and U.S. Highway 30. Dugouts at the field also sustained minor damage.
United States Geological Survey topographic
sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then
testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every 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.
Description of the property
together. The third or attic story features a Palladian window in the gable end at the On the first floor, the entrance leads into an octagonal foyer with a domed ceiling. traditional canopy-type theater marquee. These marquees, which have been well half the floor and has a shallow barrel vaulted ceiling.The floor also has a kitchen UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES INVENTORY -- NOMINATION FORM Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Building and Madison Theater, Mansfield, Richland Co.,OH ITEM NUMBER in inspiration and typical of the art deco period.
Plaster relief work, accented by in the center of the ceiling, but this auditorium does not possess a large series of small dressing rooms on several levels and below the stage is the boiler PAGE women's lounges, each in a good state of preservation with their original furniture CONTINUATION SHEET rectangular and is ornamented by rich assortment of angular designs, possibly Mayan room for both buildings. DATE ENTERED FOR NPS USE ONLY Form No.10-300a (Hev. 10-74) altogether, with a main floor and a large balcony. The proscenium arch is gold leaf, highlights the walls and ceiling of the auditorium. A large rosette is RECEIVED APR 1 5 1980 intact.The auditorium is a large cavernous space, seating about l500 people AREAS OF
Statement of significance
/ARCHITECT Oscar Cobb, Chicago; John Eberhard, STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE The Madison Theater and the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Building constitute a major architectural landmark in downtown Mansfield that also has a rich history as the setting for an impressive display of memorabilia,ameeting place for veterans groups, and as a major public assembly hall that has held live shows and films. These two connected buildings Mansfield and Richland County. The Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Building was conceived as a monument to Civil War recently completed structure which was hailed as the first of its kind in the country, not only a beautiful monument to the honored dead, but of material benefit to the city.
special act of The Ohio Legislature and the approval of a $40,000 bond issue by the voters organizations, the public library, the museum and other functions housed in the front section. In fact, a sizeable surplus was built up. battle flags and memorabilia from the Civil War, but for its extensive display of historical material on Richland County, was finally closed in 1955 by the state fire both the theater and the memorial building have experienced a decline in their use. the past, the buildings were the center for public entertainment and enrichment.
Now, these historic buildings have potential for revitalizing the downtown by serving 1500-1599 1600-1699 1400-1499 LAW COMMERCE EDUCATION COMMUNICATIONS ARCHEOLOGY-HISTORIC PERIOD AGRICULTURE SIGNIFICANCE POLITICS/GOVERNMENT MILITARY ENGINEERING INDUSTRY SCULPTURE N.Y.C. _EXPLORATION/SETTLEMENT PREHISTORIC successful operation.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 80003214, 12 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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