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Briggsdale was established on the north side of the Columbus and Harrisburg Turnpike, a private toll road that was completed in 1849 and passed diagonally through the southeast corner of the Briggs family farm. The 1893 plat consisted of 97 small lots, five public streets, and several existing buildings, including a railroad depot, a post office, a schoolhouse, and the Joseph M. Briggs home. The Italianate style home, where Briggs and his wife Louisiana raised their seven children, was built in 1881 and demolished in 1958. The last Briggs home on the original family farmstead was built on this site in 1911 and occupied by William Irving Briggs (the eldest son of Joseph) until his death in 1964. The house was demolished for expansion of the Briggsdale Apartments complex in 2018.
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Greenwood Farm straddles the East Branch of Euclid Creek where a waterfall and gorge expose outcroppings of Euclid bluestone. George and Maude Maynard Phypers acquired the property in 1908. Four generations of the Phypers family lived here until the City of Richmond Heights purchased it in 2004. Called Cleveland’s “Insurance Dean” for his leadership in the field, George (1873-1972) was a businessman and civic leader. He served on the Richmond Heights Village Council from 1921 to 1953. Maude (1872-1965) was the first woman to serve on the local school board (1931). The 17-acre farm includes a 19th century post-and-beam English barn and a 1917 Colonial Revival brick house. A powerhouse supplied electricity to the farm and a nearby school prior to rural electrification in the 1930s. Greenwood Farm was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.
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The Curtis-Preyer Stone House takes its name from two families associated with its early history. Richard and Clarissa Dille Curtis purchased 70 acres in the Connecticut Western Reserve from veteran Elias Lee in 1819. The Euclid Township “Turkey Knob” settlement soon thrived around Dugway Brook, springs sites, and an American Indian crossroads. The Curtis, Dille, Lee, and Stillman families, related by marriage, helped each other succeed by harnessing the creek to power their grist and saw mills and selling quarried stone and felled timber. Sometime between 1819 and 1835 Curtis built his stone house using the Berea sandstone quarried on site. The roof was created of ax-hewn “pegged” tree timbers, and the thick stone walls fashioned of uncoursed, chiseled stones. A central chimney fed seven fireplaces and a bake oven.