{"nrhp_refnum":"12001112","name":"Village Hall","other_names":["Old Village Hall"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"239 S. Main St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Sheffield","county":"Bureau County","state":"IL","lat":41.35814177900005,"lon":-89.73713093099997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2013-01-02","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story, square-plan red brick village hall at 239 South Main Street in Sheffield, Bureau County, Illinois, built in 1910 to a design by George Franklin Barber and constructed by local contractor Patrick M. Ford.","why_significant":"The building is a rare municipal commission by George Franklin Barber, a nationally known mail-order architect who was best known for Queen Anne houses. It also served the village for decades as city hall, jail, fire station and water works office, and it retains excellent exterior and interior integrity.","narrative":"Sheffield's Village Hall, at 239 South Main Street, is a square-plan, two-story building of locally made red brick, completed in December 1910. George Franklin Barber of Knoxville, Tennessee, designed it in 1909, and local contractor Patrick M. Ford built it for a total cost of just over $10,000. The style is Classical Revival with Romanesque Revival influences. Its main features are a projecting three-story entry tower with a belfry, an arched entrance framed by limestone Doric columns, and the original pressed-tin shingles on the Mansard and tower roofs. The building housed several functions under one roof: a voting room, a jail with its original steel cage, a fire department, a water works office, and a second-floor council room. Barber was best known for mail-order Queen Anne houses, so this municipal commission is unusual in his career. Alterations have been minor, mostly replaced doors, some windows and added paneling, and the interior retains much original plaster, woodwork and staircase detail.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"George Franklin Barber (architect); Patrick M. Ford (builder)","architectural_style":"Late 19th and 20th Century Revivals/Classical Revival; Late Victorian/Romanesque Revival","criteria":[],"status_note":"The jail room is used for storage, and the listed current function is other/storage. Some first-story windows on the west elevation are boarded.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:37.343483-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/38/8917/28891738/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/12001112.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/12001112/e1067aa0b0-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/12001112/e1067aa0b0-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Boscophotos","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Image_Sheffield_Village_Hall.jpeg\" rel=\"noopener\">Boscophotos</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Image_Sheffield_Village_Hall.jpeg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28891738","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_Hall_(Sheffield,_Illinois)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q25209538"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/bureau-county/village-hall-12001112/"}