Central (Lower) Square

Central (Lower) Square. . Central (Lower) Square, just after the turn of the 20th century, shows the bustling business activity at the intersection of Central Avenue and Washington Street. On the right is the Masonic Temple housing, among many other businesses, Frank J. Hanson’s gentlemen’s clothing store and Charles A. Faxon’s grocery. The Masonic Temple was to burn down on March 29, 1906. It would be rebuilt the following year., Dover’s City Hall and Opera House sits on the site of our present-day city hall. It was Dover’s third municipal building and, like the first two, it burned down as well. The Opera House fire happened in 1933 and the building was replaced with our current Municipal Building in 1935. Just at the corner of Hale Street, is the Woodman Block, with its mansard roof, an outstanding example of Victorian-style commercial architecture. It was built in the late 1890s by Theodore Woodman who also donated the land now occupied by the Woodman Park School., Next door was the Belknap Congregational Church, built in 1859 and closed in 1911. It was razed in the mid-1960s for a parking lot. Just up the street at the corner was J. Herbert Seavey’s Hardware Store, a Dover institution for many decades., Above is the printing office of Foster's Daily Democrat, founded by Joshua Lane Foster on June 18, 1873. Foster's moved to this location around 1900 and expanded many times since. Today, it is the only newspaper in the nation that carries a family name on its masthead and was the only daily paper in the U.S. that passed through five generations until its sale at the end of 2014. Its first issues were four pages and sold for 1.5 cents to just 150 readers.