Corning Commercial Historic District

The district's historical significance is further attested by a number of features or historical themes. The district retains good examples of every phase of its development and history. The district's linear layout, with twin 100-foot wide main streets, associated with a park and the courthouse placed at its uppermost end, is unusual and is thought to be the only such town a three-block long double-ended row of commercial buildings, arrayed along a series of half-blocks, is also unmatched in the state. The buildings included in this feature have double or even triple front facades (the latter number if they occupy a street corner location, see 627 Davis Avenue). The three major developmental periods in the district's history, the push to build better commercial buildings following the financial panic of the early 1890s, the response to the disastrous fire of late 1896, and the final phase of downtown up building in the 1930s, and the role of the Federal government in the enhancement of public art and the symbolism of community life, are all well and fully represented in the
The buildings also represent a number of important downtown sub-themes, these being the need to house large and expanding department stores, the provision of a modern opera house and city hall, the tendency to incorporate auto-related services within the preexisting downtown, the growth of government and particularly federal agricultural agencies (601-37 Street, 606 7" Street, 602 8h Street, 406 8h Street, 829 Benton Avenue, and others) and the need to house replacement banks following the Great Depression.