{"nrhp_refnum":"06000713","name":"Oregon Commercial Historic District","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Roughly bounded by Jefferson, Franklin, 5th and 3rd Sts.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Oregon","county":"Ogle County","state":"IL","lat":42.01459667200007,"lon":-89.33243922481813,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2006-08-16","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce","Industry","Politics/Government","Architecture","Art"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A commercial historic district in downtown Oregon, the Ogle County seat in northern Illinois, roughly bounded by Jefferson, Franklin, 5th and 3rd streets. It covers about five city blocks of commercial, governmental and industrial buildings dating from the 1850s onward.","why_significant":"The district holds the city's entire historic commercial, governmental and adjacent industrial core, and its buildings read as a timeline of development from the 1850s through the 1950s. It includes the 1891 Ogle County Courthouse, a 1930 post office, a 1922 Coliseum, a piano factory and many commercial buildings in varied styles. The mix of styles and uses would be uncommon even in a much larger community.","narrative":"Downtown Oregon, Illinois, the seat of Ogle County, contains a compact commercial district of a little over five blocks along the Rock River. It brings together the 1891 Romanesque Revival courthouse, a 1930 Colonial Revival post office, a 1922 Coliseum with a public swimming pool, a 1920 city hall, former theaters, a Masonic temple, a livery stable and the large Schiller Piano Company factory. Commercial buildings range from mid-nineteenth-century limestone structures to Italianate brick blocks, Arts and Crafts storefronts and Art Deco and Art Moderne designs. Unusually, commerce grew on only two sides of the courthouse square, likely because of the early mills along the river. The square also holds a Lorado Taft soldiers' monument, a 1950 war memorial and an 1896 cast iron fountain. The district has 44 contributing and 11 non-contributing buildings, plus contributing structures and objects. It was listed because it documents the town's development from the 1850s to the mid-twentieth century in unusual variety.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Ogle County Courthouse: George O. Garnsey, architect, Charles A. Moses, builder; Soldiers' Monument: Lorado Taft, sculptor, Pond and Pond, architects; Oregon Public Library: Pond and Pond","architectural_style":"Italianate, Classical Revival, Romanesque","criteria":[],"status_note":"Current uses include professional offices, businesses, specialty stores, restaurants, a financial institution and the courthouse. Some storefronts have been altered and a few buildings have been demolished.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:37.482687-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/7/8938/28893807/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/06000713.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/06000713/e9747b6b7d-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/06000713/e9747b6b7d-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 2.5","author":"Andy McMurray","credit_html":"Andy McMurray, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ogle_County_Oregon_Il_300_Washington_View2.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28893807","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Commercial_Historic_District","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7101145"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/ogle-county/oregon-commercial-historic-district-06000713/"}