The Battell Block

The Battell Block. . , Built from the Ashes, Middlebury's Main Street has been the commercial center of the town since its founding, but its character has changed many times, largely due to that great public enemy of the era-fire. In the first half of the 19th Century, the muddy dirt street was lined with the clapboard and brick businesses of shopkeepers and craftsmen. Large mills sat next door to smaller commercial buildings, with offices and apartments upstairs. In 1875, a large fire ripped through downtown, causing $172,000 in damages. A smaller one broke out in 1883. Then, on November 23, 1891, the worst fire in Middlebury's history leveled much of the downtown. The flames consumed much of the main bridge and most of the buildings northeast of the Creek. It was stopped just before it reached the stately new Beckwith Block (1883, now the main branch of the National Bank of Middlebury) and the old town churches on the Green. Downtown Middlebury was a smoldering blank canvas, ripe for rebuilding., Joseph Battell, Middlebury was lucky to have a wealthy local businessman with the vision and resources to make sure the new downtown would be as beautiful and fireproof as the age allowed. Joseph Battell (1839-1915) was the greatest philanthropist the Middlebury area has ever known. He invested his time and fortune into many ventures - amassing the forestland that would become the core of the Green Mountain National Forest, building and operating the Breadloaf Inn, establishing the Morgan Horse Farm, and publishing the local newspaper. After the 1891 fire, he put up much of the money to rebuild the downtown bridge (the "Battell Bridge") in stone. It crossed the Creek one floor higher than the old bridge, forcing the existing building owners to create new ground floor entrances on what had been their second floors., The Fire of 1891 also provided an opportunity for Battell to build his own large, attractive commercial block on a prime downtown site. The first phase of the Battell Block, the large commercial building along Merchants Row, with its charming bay-windowed shop fronts, was completed in 1892. The Main Street section was not completed until 1898. Built to the era's highest standards in fireproof design, it has a steel frame clad in brick with stone trim. The rounded corner tower was topped with a jaunty cone, sadly removed for safety concerns after a 1950 hurricane and never replaced. The Battell Block set the style, and the standard, for new commercial buildings in downtown Middlebury.