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Zooming In On Character Defining FeaturesHistoric research becomes useful when it gives a design team a clearer basis fo...
09/02/2026

Zooming In On Character Defining Features

Historic research becomes useful when it gives a design team a clearer basis for what to retain, repair, reveal, or adapt.

One important part of that research is identifying the character-defining features of both individual buildings and the district as a whole. In an earlier post, we looked at the Farmers Market Historic District as a system of building types, circulation, loading, and distribution. At a more granular level, its materials, forms, and architectural expression also help explain what makes the place distinctive.

Much of the district is intentionally modest in character. Many resources have no formal architectural style, while others recall agricultural or vernacular commercial construction. Across warehouses, market-support buildings, sheds, and canopies, exposed structural systems and corrugated galvanized-metal “barn siding” form a recurring material language. These straightforward materials reinforce the district’s history as a place for direct farmer-to-consumer sales and wholesale food distribution.

A smaller group of public-facing buildings is more architecturally articulated. These include several Commercial Style resources and a few buildings with Spanish Colonial Revival or Art Deco-influenced details. Their palette expands to include stucco, face brick, glazed and terra-cotta tile, and cast-stone trim.

Understanding these material palettes—and their relationship to building function, location, and historic use—gives a design team a more reliable basis for future decisions. Before proposing change, it is important to understand which features are merely old, which are character-defining, and how individual buildings contribute to the larger visual and functional identity of the district.

The images here show both sides of that range: corrugated barn siding and utilitarian construction that define much of the working district, alongside more decorative materials and details found on its architecturally articulated buildings.

The Farmers Public Market Building Is the Anchor—Not the Whole StoryListed on the National Register of Historic Places i...
08/26/2026

The Farmers Public Market Building Is the Anchor—Not the Whole Story

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, the Farmers Public Market Building was the first major building in John J. Harden’s “Market Square” development, now known as the Farmers Market Historic District. Completed in 1928, the initial building is well-known as the historic venue for farmers to sell directly to the public. And while it established a public destination, it also positioned an architectural focal point for a larger commercial and wholesale district that Harden soon marketed for additional development.

The public market’s role as an anchor was apparent from the beginning. Its scale, prominent position, and architectural character distinguished it from the lower, more utilitarian buildings that followed. The building stands near the convergence of Exchange Avenue, South Klein Avenue, and Southwest Third Street; it is visible from the district’s principal approaches and remains its most recognizable landmark. The nomination identifies it as the district’s dominant anchor, with other resources organized around it across five clustered blocks.

But Market Square was not conceived as a single landmark building. It was a coordinated development: a public market supported by warehouses, market canopies, truck-service facilities, storefronts, loading docks, service drives, a rail spur, and other buildings that made food distribution and market activity possible.

That distinction matters for design. Rehabilitation of the surrounding buildings can strengthen and restore legible relationships among materials, scale, loading patterns, streets, and open space. Compatible infill on sites where historic resources have been lost can also help reestablish the district’s historic development pattern—while remaining appropriately subordinate to the Farmers Public Market Building.

The opportunity is not simply to preserve a landmark. It is to make the larger historic setting work again: through building rehabilitation, adaptive reuse, district planning, and carefully considered public-realm improvements.

The Joyce House, near Snyder Oklahoma, was designed by Herb Greene and completed in 1960. He was designing the Prairie H...
08/22/2026

The Joyce House, near Snyder Oklahoma, was designed by Herb Greene and completed in 1960. He was designing the Prairie House in Norman during the same period and experimentation with similar methods, materiality and form is evident on the two projects. The owners of the house ran the “Roosevelt Granite” quarry on the same site. Today, I was fortunate to go see the house, explore a little bit and do a little bit of sketching with other admirers of Greene’s work. The last photo is the sketch I did—I enjoyed the rare opportunity to sit and draw simply for pleasure.

Historic districts are not simply collections of old buildings. They are systems shaped by the movement of people, goods...
08/19/2026

Historic districts are not simply collections of old buildings. They are systems shaped by the movement of people, goods, and vehicles—and those systems change over time.

The Farmers Market Historic District was developed in the 1920s around a food-distribution model that depended on rail access, smaller trucks, market activity, and closely spaced warehouse buildings. Produce could arrive by boxcar from farms or cooperatives, be unloaded at a receiving dock, processed and packaged inside a warehouse, and transferred to trucks for local distribution.

The first graphic follows that sequence through a building constructed around 1935 and historically associated with Stilwell Products and Osborne Produce. Today it houses Urban Agrarian, but the loading docks, rail-side orientation, warehouse form, and relationship to truck circulation still make its original purpose legible.

The 1963 and 1970 aerial maps show a distribution system in transition.

The Crosstown Expressway was under construction by 1965 and opened in 1966, roughly two blocks north of the district. For nearly fifty years, this elevated highway formed a substantial physical barrier between downtown and the industrial and wholesale areas to the south.

At the same time, freight movement was increasingly organized around over-the-road tractor-trailer combinations—equipment and logistics patterns that the district’s 1920s internal streets, rail spur, docks, and warehouse configurations had not been designed to accommodate. The rail spur that once served the warehouse buildings was closed by 1975, while larger regional distribution centers near national highways increasingly became the preferred model for moving and processing goods.

These changes help explain why 1975 marks the end of the nominated district’s period of significance.

For rehabilitation, adaptive reuse, and district-scale planning, this history matters. The rail corridor, truck courts, loading docks, service drives, street widths, and building orientations are not incidental leftovers. They are evidence of how the district worked—and a practical starting point for deciding how it can work again.

Planning and design in a historic district should begin by establishing the real project area—before assumptions about r...
08/12/2026

Planning and design in a historic district should begin by establishing the real project area—before assumptions about redevelopment, circulation, streetscape, or building reuse take hold. Research into a district’s history and physical patterns can inform better decisions in later planning and design phases.

Historic districts are specific places with documented boundaries, resources, and relationships. The first image shows the boundary of the Farmers Market Historic District nomination: five clustered blocks bounded by West Reno Avenue, Exchange Avenue, Southwest Third Street, and a western platting line marked by a fence.

The second image is a 1929 advertisement by the original development company, uncovered during research for the nomination. It marketed the area as “Market Square,” a predominantly wholesale district with access to rail and major roads.

Because the nominated district is significant in Community Planning and Development, the correspondence between its present boundary and the original Market Square development is meaningful—not accidental. The third image enlarges the historic plan from the advertisement to the same scale as the nomination boundary map, making that relationship visible.

The area nominated to the National Register is a focused historic core within the larger area commonly known as the Oklahoma City Farmers Market District. Future research may identify additional areas or resources that warrant evaluation, but they are not part of the current nomination.

höffnerdesignstudio prepared the Farmers Market Historic District National Register nomination for the City of Oklahoma City Planning Department’s Office of Historic Preservation. The project was funded through a Certified Local Government grant administered by the State Historic Preservation Office.

We are excited to bring this understanding of the district’s historic development, resource patterns, circulation, and built fabric to future rehabilitation, adaptive-reuse, district-planning, and streetscape projects.

This nomination to the National Register for the Farmers Market Historic district has been in the works for quite a spel...
07/31/2026

This nomination to the National Register for the Farmers Market Historic district has been in the works for quite a spell, and today the final 187 page report was turned in to the State Historic Preservation Office. Now it’s just a matter of surviving the process of City, State and National level reviews.

Celebrating this milestone with w**e in hand and fingers crossed for positive reviews.

I missed a real opportunity by not naming him “Fonzie.”
07/27/2026

I missed a real opportunity by not naming him “Fonzie.”

Why you stopped petting?
07/15/2026

Why you stopped petting?

Today is Syd’s 3rd birthday, as calculated by backing out the Humane Society’s estimate of his age from his Gotcha Day.
06/22/2026

Today is Syd’s 3rd birthday, as calculated by backing out the Humane Society’s estimate of his age from his Gotcha Day.

Es ist mein Geburtstag. Ich bin heute zweiundsechzig Jahre alt. Scheiße.
06/13/2026

Es ist mein Geburtstag. Ich bin heute zweiundsechzig Jahre alt. Scheiße.

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