Gallagher Building Youngstown, Ohio

Text courtesy of the National Register of Historic Places, a program of the National Parks Service. Minor transcription errors or changes in formatting may have occurred; please see the Nomination Form PDF for official text. Some information may have become outdated since the property was nominated for the Register.

The Gallagher Building, located at 23 North Hazel Street and 131 Commerce Street in downtown Youngstown, Ohio, is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places under Criteria A and C, during the period the building was used by The John Gallagher Company as a liquor wholesale establishment, from 1904 until 1920. Under Criterion A, the building is locally significant for Commerce, as a rare survivor of the downtown mercantile prosperity of the business and commercial center of the Mahoning Valley region during a period of great industrial expansion brought on by the growing manufacturing and steel industries in the area. Also eligible under Criterion A, for European ethnic heritage, the building represents the business success of John Gallagher (1844-1924), an Irish immigrant to Youngstown who was a significant contributor to the mercantile, social, and philanthropic character of the Mahoning Valley. A testament to both Youngstown's commerce and immigrants, Gallagher arrived in Youngstown in 1864, building a business that in five decades became the largest liquor supplier in the Mahoning Valley before its closure by Prohibition. The building is eligible under Criterion C, as a Commercial-style warehouse built in 1904 and designed by the prominent Youngstown architectural firm of Owsley and Boucherle. Few commercial buildings designed by this architectural firm, Youngstown's most prominent, survive to represent the decades of Youngstown's greatest industrial and commercial economic prosperity.