The MacDonell House is a late-Victorian mansion on the Allen County Museum campus, and one of the few surviving structures from Lima's prosperous Golden Block era. Built during the city's industrial boom years, when Lima Locomotive Works was one of the largest locomotive manufacturers in the world, the house represents the scale of wealth that heavy industry brought to this corner of northwestern Ohio.
The interior has been preserved and furnished to reflect the domestic life of a prosperous Lima family in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is accessible as part of the Allen County Museum visit. The architectural detailing — pressed tin ceilings, decorative woodwork, period wallpapers — is well worth a look even if industrial history is not your primary interest.