North Main Street today, now called the Carousel District.
Every storefront is occupied.
When the railroad came to Mansfield, Ohio, in the 1850s, the town was transformed from a sleepy village into a prominent manufacturing center. By the late 19th century, downtown was a vibrant Victorian community, growing through the first few decades of the 20th century. In the post-WWII years, however, downtown Mansfield's vitality began to fade. Retail gravitated towards a strip center called the Miracle Mile, and in 1969, a regional shopping mall was built in Ontario, a Mansfield suburb. One by one, Mansfield's department stores closed or moved away.