The Hudson Downtown Historic District is a

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...

comprising the

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

area of the city of

Hudson Hudson may refer to: People * Hudson (given name) * Hudson (surname) * Henry Hudson, English explorer * Hudson (footballer, born 1986), Hudson Fernando Tobias de Carvalho, Brazilian football right-back * Hudson (footballer, born 1988), Hudso ...

in westernmost Lenawee County,

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

. It was designated as a Michigan Historic Site on January 21, 1974. It was later added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

on December 24, 1974.

History

The district traces its origins to the founding of Hudson with the arrival of the railways in 1837. Merchants opened establishments at this location on the

Tiffin River The Tiffin River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed May 19, 2011 tributary of the Maumee River in northwestern Ohio in the United States. Headwater tributaries of the r ...

in the early 1840s, and by 1853, hudson was organized as a village. Hudson served as an important trading center from 1854–1891. Most of the original wooden buildings were destroyed in a fire in 1858, and two and three story brick buildings replaced them. Another fire in 1864 destroyed much of the remaining wooden building stock. The oldest remaining building in the district is the J. K. Boise Dry Goods Company (Hudson Dry Goods) block located on the southeast corner of West Main and Church streets, which dates from 1854-1855. (note: large pdf file)

Description

The Hudson Downtown Historic District encompasses West Main Street ( M-34) between Howard Street on the west and Market Street on the east. It extends to the north to Railroad Street and south to Seward Street. The

Dr. Leonard Hall House The Dr. Leonard Hall House was a private resident located at 334 West Main Street ( M-34) in Hudson in westernmost Lenawee County, Michigan. It was designated as a Michigan Historic Site on April 4, 1978, and later added to the National Regis ...

was located at 334 West Main Street within the district, although that property has since been demolished. The district includes fifty structures, most of which are architecturally significant representations of the kind of buildings that were commonly erected in the nineteenth century in small midwestern towns. The majority of the buildings are two- and three-story commercial structures designed to house businesses and office space. These are primarily brick, although some older frame structures still stand on Church Street.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places Geography of Lenawee County, Michigan Michigan State Historic Sites in Lenawee County Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan National Register of Historic Places in Lenawee County, Michigan