College Block-Lisbon Block
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The College Block/Lisbon Block is an historic commercial and civic building in
Lewiston, Maine Lewiston (; ; officially the City of Lewiston, Maine) is List of cities in Maine, the second largest city in Maine and the most central city in Androscoggin County, Maine, Androscoggin County. The city lies halfway between Augusta, Maine, August ...
,
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
. Built in 1855-56, it is the oldest surviving building in the city of the Franklin Company, the city's major early developer. The building has house many local civic groups, and served as Lewiston's town hall prior to its incorporation as a city in 1863. It was listed on 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 ...
in 1986.


Description and history

The College Block/Lisbon Block stands on the east side of Lisbon Street, the main street in Lisbon's commercial downtown, at the northeast corner with Chestnut Street. It is a long four-story brick building, with seventeen bays facing Lisbon Street. It has eight storefronts on the ground floor, each with recessed entries flanked by display windows, and a modest building entrance to the right of the leftmost storefront. The second and third floor windows are rectangular sash, with stone sills and lintels. Eight windows near the center of the second floor are taller, with transom panes above the sashes. The fourth floor bays have a combination of fixed-pane windows and blind brick panels. The building is capped with a flat roof with projecting Italianate cornice. The block was built in 1855-56 by the Franklin Company, and was one of the first buildings it erected in what is now Lewiston's downtown. The building's upper-level meeting spaces have been used over the decades as the town hall, space for church congregations to worship, and a wide array of fraternal and social civic organizations. The city's first Franco-American society, the Institute Jacques-Cartier, met here from the 1870s until 1939. Originally called the Lisbon Block, it was renamed the College Block c. 1881 after ownership of the building was taken over by
Bates College Bates College () is a private liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine. Anchored by the Historic Quad, the campus of Bates totals with a small urban campus which includes 33 Victorian Houses as some of the dormitories. It maintains of nature p ...
.


See also

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National Register of Historic Places listings in Androscoggin County, Maine __NOTOC__ This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Androscoggin County, Maine. This is intended to be a complete list of the properties and districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Androscoggin Cou ...


References

{{National Register of Historic Places Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Maine Buildings and structures in Lewiston, Maine National Register of Historic Places in Lewiston, Maine