History
During June and July, 1875, the Versailles Village Council and the Wayne Township Trustees met and agreed to build a structure to be called the Versailles Town Hall and Wayne Township House, for the joint use of both governmental bodies. Completed by local builders in the following year, it served originally as the jail and fire station, and also included in the building were community meeting rooms and a theater. Among the most distinctive features of the building's architecture are large double doors at the entrance, topped with a prominent transom. Such a structure is quite uncommon in the villages of western Ohio, where fine Italianate town halls are very rare.
The Town Hall and Township House was one of the few structures to survive a massive fire that destroyed most of downtown Versailles in 1901. Today, the building houses the village's municipal offices, police department, and rescue squad. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981 because of its place in local history and because of its well-preserved historic architecture.
Read more about this topic: Versailles Town Hall And Wayne Township House
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.”
—Ben C. Bradlee (b. 1921)
“No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1874–1945)