Rochester Commercial and Industrial District

Rochester was chartered as a town in 1722, but substantive colonial settlement did not take place until conflicts with Native Americans subsided in the mid-18th century. The town was a center for lumber trade, and became a transportation hub, with the intersection of two stagecoach routes at what is now Central Square. In the 19th century it developed as a center of the textile and shoe industries, contributing to the state's nationwide prominence in the latter industry at the end of the century. Between 1797 and 1840 it was the county seat of Strafford County. The introduction of the railroad in 1849 continued the city's importance in transportation.^[2]

The city's downtown is largely a product of late 19th and early 20th-century development, although there are surviving elements representative of its earlier importance. A few residences and commercial buildings dating to the 1820s are found on North Main Street, northwest of Central Square, interspersed with later 19th-century and modern infill. The Central Square area, the junction of North Main, South Main, and Wakefield Streets, is ringed with late 19th and early 20th-century commercial buildings, mostly of brick construction. Civic and religious buildings are also found along Main Street, including a courthouse, city hall, and churches. The city's 19th-century industrial heritage is remembered in the four-story factory building of E.W. Wallace, its major shoe manufacturer, at 100 South Main Street.^[2]

• National Register of Historic Places listings in Strafford County, New Hampshire