Branchville Railroad Tenement
Old Main Hwy., Ridgefield, CTThe Branchville Railroad Tenement, erected in the 1850s as housing for the immigrants brought in to construct the Danbury-Norwalk Railroad, is significant primarily as the only known structure of its type in the town of Ridgefield (criterion A). One of Branchville's few remaining Victorian vernacular commercial structures (criterion C), it has served in several other capacities relevant to the development of the area. The basement level, built at an undetermined date before the coming of the railroad, was originally a storage depot, commonly thought to have been for dairy products. The tenement was enlarged, altered, and redecorated to attract railroad travelers in the 1880s, while some twenty years later it was transformed into a three-family house with stores on the basement level. Its current use as an art gallery reflects the present sophisticated suburban character of the surrounding community.
Local significance of the building:Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.