Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1982. 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
“The Wollison-Shipton Building is a historic commercial block located at 142-156 North Street in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Neil Wilson, it was built in 1888 when the area north of Park Square developed as a commercial and retail part of downtown Pittsfield.”
Wikipedia article Wollison-Shipton Building, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 94 National Register listings in Berkshire County · listed in 1982 · category: Building · one of 1 National Historic Landmarks in Berkshire County.
National Register reference number.82001899- 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.
The names inscribed on the monument are those of citizens of Pittsfield who died in the war, either from wounds, or, before their discharge, from disease contracted in the war ; not including citizens of other places, who served on her quota. They are as follows :
It was determined to place it at the west end of the park, in or near which, a large portion of the Pittsfield soldiers volunteered, and which possessed many other associations of patriotic interest; and the park, however beautiful, being not considered in a proper condition for the reception of the contemplated work, the town placed in the hands of the committee before-named, a further sum of seven thousand dollars, for the purpose of making some longdesired improvements. The nature of these improvements was left to the discretion of the committee, by whom the following changes were made : The oval plot which constitutes the park, was surrounded by a handsome and substantial coping of granite, outside of which a broad gravel walk, with granite curbing, was built. The surface of the plot was graded, and a considerable number of trees, which had become so thick as to impede each other's growth, were felled. The Old Elm had fallen in 1861. In addition to this, the grade of Park place was reduced so as to make it more uniform with that of Bank row.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 119 fires within 5 miles of Wollison-Shipton Building between
2002 and 2020, burning about 82 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 2 were 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
67
Recreation and ceremony
18
Smoking
7
Railroad operations and maintenance
7
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
6
Equipment and vehicle use
4
Misuse of fire by a minor
4
Arson/incendiarism
2
Power generation/transmission/distribution
1
Natural
1
Other causes
1
Fireworks
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 984 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Wollison-Shipton Building between 1835 and
1975: 464 Plantae, 327 Animalia, 189 Fungi, 4 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A W Evans, A. H. Mead, A. K. Harrison 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
16 workings within 5 miles of Wollison-Shipton Building: 9 past producers, 4 producers, 2 occurrences, 1 unknown.
4 still produce. What was taken out: Iron, Sand and Gravel, Construction. 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
Pittsfield, the town this property stands in, in 98 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 64 thunderstorm wind, 17 hail, 13 flash flood, 3 flood.
The reports record 1 injury. 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.
Survey team observed several structures with shingle damage to roofs. Many limbs and several trees were knocked down. Upon observation these trees were determined to be shallow rooted. Roofs dislodged from clubhouse and dugout of Waconah Park baseball stadium. Eyewitnesses with various vantage points reported observing rotating debris consistent with a tornado. Additional reports indicate a portion of the fencing at Waconah Park was also knocked down, and bleachers along the left field were pushed backward. In addition, trees and wires were downed on Tyler Street and Woodlawn Avenue, and two moored motor boats at Burbank Park were flipped over and partially submerged. There was also a report of a tree falling on a house on Charles Street. Top winds estimated at 70 mph.
A line of thunderstorms, that developed over eastern New York, moved into southern Berkshire county shortly after noon on May 25. This line of storms continued to produce strong gusty winds that brought numerous large trees and power lines down throughout the city of Pittsfield.
A cold front moving east into Berkshire County triggered widely scattered severe thunderstorms. The storms brought down large limbs and power lines in the town of Pittsfield.
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.
From the nomination file
3,407 words on record
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
The Wollis on-Shipton Building is located on an 85' x 200' lot on the east side of North Street (142-156 North Street), in the block bounded northerly on Eagle Street and southerly on Fenn Street and East by Renne Avenue in the heart of Pittsfield's business district. Abutted to it on either side are 20th century commercial buildings of similar scale. The original front, main section of the building, built in 1887, has a rectangular plan measuring 85' wide and 100' deep. The central portion rises four storeys or 65' and is flanked by two three storey wings. It is constructed of Philadelphia pressed brick trimmed with hewn dark freestone. The facade is symmetrical and has a smooth surface appearance with minimal decorative features.
The central block consists of a slightly projecting three storey central entrance bay flanked on the first floor by plate glass store fronts and on the second and third floors by tightly spaced trios of 2/1 double hung sash windows with freestone lintels and sills. The fourth floor is marked by a row of eight round-headed windows, also 2/1. The hipped roof is sheathed with original slate shingles. A delicate cast iron balustrade emphasizes the roofline. The two flanking wing facades are identical, consisting of plate glass store fronts on the first floor and evenly spaced pairs of 2/1 double hung sash windows on the second and third floors. Freestone trim is restricted to the store fronts and upper storey lintels.
Original copper downspouts outline the flanking wings' rooflines and the edges of the central block. The only exterior alterations that have occurred to the facade are the removal of three small attic dormers about 1900. As a result the wing roofs are sheathed with asphalt shingles.
/Architect H. Neil Wilson (1855-1926) Statement of Significance (in one paragraph) Builder: D.C. Munyan; Mason: George D. Foote; Heating System: Robbins, Gamwell & Co. The Wollison-Shipton Building retains integrity of location, design, workmanship, feeling and association. It is a major local example of Victorian commercial architecture and incorporates many innovative decorative and structural features as testimony to the collaboration between the owners/financers, Wollisons, Interior Decorators, and the architect, Henry Neil Wilson: prominent midwestern and local architect to have been built in Pittsfield. In addition to en se de niy comer cial bar ang ri ed bion te the Wollison's decorating firm, the building has housed a variety of businesses and the first Pittsfield YMCA.
The Wollison-Shipton building thus meets criterion A and C of the National Register of Historic Places. Ruben D. Wollison and his son Herbert S. Wollison, both well known merchants and real estate owners, built the Wollison-Shipton Block at what was then known as 74 North Street in 1887-1888. The Pittsfield Academy of Music, built 1878-9 and burned 1912, and the Wollison Block became the major features of the east side of North Street in the last quarter of the 19th century. Ruben, a paper hanger by trade, came to Pittsfield in 1848 from Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. He established himself in the painting and interior decorating business which he carried on for over forty years and retired from active business in 1887.
Ruben married the daughter of Abner Stevens, a Pittsfield store keeper and drum maker, August 1, 1852. Herbert S. Wollison entered his father's business as a young man and later spent two years with a decorating firm in New York City. He returned to Pittsfield in 1889 opening a salesroom on the second floor of the Block.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 82001899, 14 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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