National Register Historic Districts
Buchanan has several buildings and districts listed on the National Register of Historic Places:
The Downtown Buchanan National Register Historic District forms the heart of the city's commercial, civic and cultural center, just as it has since the 1830s. The District includes buildings from the 1840s-1960s, which display a variety of architectural styles. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.
The Buchanan North and West Neighborhoods National Register Historic District wraps downtown on its north and west sides, and includes over 700 homes, barns, garages, sacred and commercial properties, and more. Its buildings represent over twenty-three architectural styles, and many were homes to city leaders, merchants, and employees of the former Clark Equipment and Electro-Voice companies. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.
The Clark Equipment Company Administrative Complex Historic District, located just east of the historic downtown, is an impressive reuse story in Buchanan. Originally, the multi-acre campus was home to the corporate headquarters, testing laboratory, and personnel office for the Fortune 200 company. Clark Equipment was a major twentieth century manufacturer of heavy machinery and truck axles, material handling equipment, construction machines, and other equipment, and did very substantial national defense contract work in both World Wars.
Buchanan's Union Block is a three-story, brick commercial Italianate building constructed in 1862-1863. The building's front retains its original arched windows, with stone sills, on the second and third floors. The Union Block stands at the heart of the city's three-block long central business district and “Mill Alley,” a public way running south one block to a restored early flour mill, the Pears Mill.
The Zinc Collar Pad Building was constructed in 1875 for business partners George H. Richards, Dexter Curtis, and Henry Gilman. When built, the building was an unassuming, though not unadorned, industrial presence in a booming small town laden with many buildings serving similar roles. Over the last 134 years, it served two major roles. For thirty-nine years it was the manufacturing, shipping and administrative headquarters for a thriving local firm with an international clientele that was, for a time, an icon in Buchanan. Later, after the firm moved, the building underwent an early and enduring adaptive re-use, and was for eighty years used as four modest, well-crafted apartments.
