{"nrhp_refnum":"84001073","name":"Wenner, Charles, House","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Rocky Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Galena","county":"Jo Daviess County","state":"IL","lat":42.46103630300007,"lon":-90.41103807499996,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1984-08-22","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Exploration/Settlement","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story, rectangular-plan vernacular limestone dwelling on a southern hillside in rural Vinegar Hill Township near Galena, Jo Daviess County, Illinois, built in 1854 by Charles Wenner.","why_significant":"The house represents the vernacular dwellings built by settlers who came to Galena to work the lead mines. It shows how an ordinary German immigrant miner turned farmer lived in the early days of Galena's growth. Its plain stone form, with thick walls, end chimneys and side-by-side rooms, reflects German building traditions and resembles several earlier Galena houses.","narrative":"Set alone on a south-facing hillside outside Galena, this two-story limestone house was built in 1854 by Charles Wenner, a German immigrant who worked for a mining company before starting a family and a farm. Its twenty-inch coursed limestone walls, sawed limestone sills and lintels, symmetrical five-bay front and brick end chimneys give it a solid, simple appearance. A stone lean-to on the north side once held the kitchen and pantry. Wenner received the land from his stepfather, Louis Schaber, whose family came to Galena from Wurttemberg in 1834, and he lived in the house until shortly before his death in 1905. The house is valued as a surviving reminder of the settlers from Germany and England who came to work the area's lead mines. It also compares closely with several early Galena stone houses, and is the plainest of them. Decades of vacancy and use as a corn crib have left it badly deteriorated, though its historic character remains legible.","period_of_significance":"1800-1899 (specific date 1854)","architect_builder":"Charles Wenner","architectural_style":"Vernacular stone dwelling","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Described as in terrible disrepair after about thirty years of vacancy and use as a corn crib; the form marks the property as unoccupied and not used.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:35.152463-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/80/8930/28893080/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/84001073.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/84001073/a10285e305-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/84001073/a10285e305-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Brianmc52","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wenner_House_in_autumn.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Brianmc52</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:Wenner_House_in_autumn.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28893080","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Wenner_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q21037396"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/jo-daviess-county/wenner-charles-house-84001073/"}