The Emmitt-Greenbaum Building / The Waverly Canal Historic District

Side A: Emmitt-Greenbaum Building, 200 North Market Street, was built around 1878 by businessman and politician James Emmitt (1806-1893) to replace his 1837 wooden warehouse. The brick three-story Italianate building featured five vertical cast iron belts of simulated stone, a projecting cornice, reeded pilasters, and a “fortress-like fourteen bay front.” A covered wooden stairway on the building’s south side originally projected over the canal. Charles Louis Greenbaum (1871-1935) purchased the building in 1912 and opened his department store advertising it as “The Store with The Goods!” Over 140 years, the Emmitt-Greenbaum building was occupied by Jas. Emmitt Dry Goods, Hoffman’s, Greenbaum’s, Armbruster and Armbruster, Waverly Drugs, and the Bee Hive Tavern. A structural collapse after decades of deterioration condemned the building and the southwestern half was razed in 2021. Side B: The commercial buildings and private residences that grew up in Waverly around the Ohio and Erie Canal (today’s U.S. Route 23) were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The Waverly Canal Historic District included such significant 19th century buildings as the Pike County Courthouse (1865), the United Church of Christ (1859), the Emmitt House Hotel and Restaurant (1861), the Grand Hotel (circa 1840), the Greenbaum Building (circa 1878), the “Bissell Port” (circa 1841), the James Emmitt House (1867), and the Yahraus House (circa 1855). The district was deemed significant for its “direct ties” to canal transportation and industries, for its “historic associations” with the early residents of Waverly, and for its preservation as a “cohesive 19th century American business and residential area.”