{"nrhp_refnum":"75000673","name":"Old Main, Augustana College","other_names":["Memorial Hall"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"7th Ave. between 35th and 38th Sts.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Rock Island","county":"Rock Island County","state":"IL","lat":41.50425616100006,"lon":-90.54946187799999,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1975-09-11","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Education","European","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Old Main is a stone college building on the 100-acre Augustana College campus on 7th Avenue in Rock Island, Illinois, overlooking the Mississippi River. It was built between 1884 and 1893 to plans by Chicago architect L. G. Hallberg.","why_significant":"The nomination calls it the most notable building erected by Swedish immigrants in the United States, reflecting Swedish university traditions and modeled on a newly built main building at Uppsala. It is also the central building of Augustana College, which was long the cultural center of the Swedish immigration. It is significant in architecture, education, and religion/philosophy.","narrative":"Old Main is the central building of Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. It is a three-and-a-half-story building of buff dolomite from Le Claire, Iowa, topped by a grey-green dome and fronted by a portico with red granite pillars. Construction ran from 1884 to 1893 on plans by Chicago architect L. G. Hallberg, and the cost was roughly $65,000 to $80,000. Swedish immigrants with limited means built it with great sacrifice, helped by a $25,000 gift from P. L. Cable. College leaders, trained at the Swedish universities of Uppsala and Lund, modeled it on a recently erected main building at Uppsala. For decades it held classrooms, a chapel, a library, laboratories, a seminary and an academy. Since a 1960 renovation that turned the chapel into classrooms and offices, it has served only for college teaching and staff offices. It is regarded as the most notable building raised by Swedish immigrants in the United States.","period_of_significance":"1884-93","architect_builder":"L. G. Hallberg, architect (final plans); preliminary plans by E. S. Hammatt of Davenport; stone and brick work by J. A. P. Berg of Moline; dome by Sievers and Anderson of Rock Island","architectural_style":"Neo-Classical Revival","criteria":[],"status_note":"In excellent condition and used for college classrooms and staff offices; the exterior is essentially unchanged and the interior was altered in 1960 when the chapel was converted to classrooms and offices.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:35.438857-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/53/8939/28893953/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/75000673.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75000673/bd07759f07-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75000673/bd07759f07-1600.webp","licence":"CC0","author":"Smallbones","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_Main_Augustana.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Smallbones</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_Main_Augustana.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28893953","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Main,_Augustana_College","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14687994"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/rock-island-county/old-main-augustana-college-75000673/"}