{"nrhp_refnum":"78003110","name":"Hamilton, John M., House","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"502 S. Clayton St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Bloomington","county":"McLean County","state":"IL","lat":40.47581855000004,"lon":-88.98605508499998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1978-09-06","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Politics/Government"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story white clapboard frame house with an irregular plan at 502 S. Clayton Street, Bloomington, McLean County, Illinois, built about 1872 and still used as a private residence.","why_significant":"It was the home of John M. Hamilton, the nineteenth governor of Illinois, who lived there from the early 1870s until he moved into the governor's mansion in 1883. A state official's letter in the file says it is the only remaining Illinois home of Hamilton known to that office, apart from the Executive Mansion.","narrative":"This two-story wooden house at 502 S. Clayton Street in Bloomington was built around 1872. It has white painted clapboard siding, a brick foundation and an irregular plan made up of a gabled central core with wings. A single-story porch wraps the front and north sides on white columns, and a semi-hexagonal projection holds the front door. The house is significant as the home of John Marshall Hamilton, born in Ohio in 1847, who came to Bloomington as a young lawyer and taught Latin at Illinois Wesleyan University. He served in the state senate, became lieutenant governor in 1880 and governor in March 1883, when Shelby Cullom went to the U.S. Senate. After he moved into the governor's mansion, the house was rented to tenants and sold in 1888. Hamilton later practiced law in Chicago and died there in 1905. State officials identified this as his only known surviving Illinois residence apart from the mansion.","period_of_significance":"1872","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"Listed as occupied private property in excellent condition, and the form shows it as a private residence. The form marks the building both altered and unaltered.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:34.889153-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/5/8937/28893705/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/78003110.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/78003110/1b9f916778-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/78003110/1b9f916778-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 2.5","author":"IvoShandor","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bloomington_IL_John_M._Hamilton_House1.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">IvoShandor</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 2.5</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bloomington_IL_John_M._Hamilton_House1.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28893705","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._Hamilton_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6245835"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/mclean-county/hamilton-john-m-house-78003110/"}