{"nrhp_refnum":"02001757","name":"White Oak Hall","other_names":["White Oak School"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"SE corner Jct. of White Oak and Lower Beardstown Rds.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Rushville","county":"Schuyler County","state":"IL","lat":40.10889077100006,"lon":-90.51920545599995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2003-02-05","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Education","Entertainment/Recreation","Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"White Oak Hall is a two-story wood-frame rural schoolhouse and community hall about two miles east of Rushville, Schuyler County, Illinois, built in 1874 on the site of an earlier log school.","why_significant":"The nomination argues it is locally significant under Criterion A for education, as one of the few surviving rural one-room schools with integrity in Schuyler County. It also served as a community center, with a school below and a Grange hall above used for meetings, church services, literary society events and social gatherings. It is described as the only two-story building in the county with a school on the first floor and community space on the second.","narrative":"White Oak Hall is a two-story, white-clapboard schoolhouse set on a rough-cut limestone foundation east of Rushville in Schuyler County, Illinois. Built in 1874 of locally cut white oak timbers to replace an earlier log school, it takes its name from the lumber and the grove of white oaks where it stood. The ground floor held a one-room school that operated until 1960, when students were bussed into Rushville. The upper floor was designed as a hall for the White Oak Grange, a farmers' fraternal organization, and later hosted a literary society, church services, Sunday school, school programs, plays and suppers. Preaching continued there through 1985, and the room served as a gathering place into the 1990s. The building is described as the only two-story school and community hall of its kind in the county and one of few rural schools to keep its historic integrity. It is currently vacant and privately owned.","period_of_significance":"1874-1952","architect_builder":"Unknown","architectural_style":"Other: Two-story schoolhouse","criteria":["A"],"status_note":"Current function is listed as vacant/not in use; the property is privately owned. The school closed in 1960 and community gatherings continued until the 1990s.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:37.222182-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/4/8941/28894104/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/02001757.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/02001757/78efc1fc7e-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/02001757/78efc1fc7e-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"fafinney","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:White_Oak_Hall_at_intersection_of_Beardstown_and_Teel_(White_Oak)_Roads.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">fafinney</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:White_Oak_Hall_at_intersection_of_Beardstown_and_Teel_(White_Oak)_Roads.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28894104","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Oak_Hall","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7995138"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/schuyler-county/white-oak-hall-02001757/"}