{"nrhp_refnum":"84001165","name":"Taylor, Oscar, House","other_names":["Stephenson County Historical Society Museum"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"1440 S. Carroll Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Freeport","county":"Stephenson County","state":"IL","lat":42.28449640000008,"lon":-89.61518842899994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1984-05-11","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"An Italianate villa-style limestone mansion at 1440 South Carroll Avenue in Freeport, Illinois, built in 1857 for Oscar Taylor and now used as the Stephenson County Historical Society Museum.","why_significant":"The nomination presents it as a typical pre-Civil War Italianate stone house and the first of Freeport's big houses, giving a view of aristocratic life in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. It was the center of much of the city's cultural life and was home to Oscar Taylor, a banker, attorney and abstracter. It was designed by Otis Wheelock of the Chicago firm Boyington and Wheelock.","narrative":"Built in 1857 at 1440 South Carroll Avenue in Freeport, Illinois, this Italianate villa of roughly textured local limestone has walls two feet thick, paired brackets under the eaves, hooded windows and a cupola. It was built for Oscar Taylor, a banker, attorney and pioneer abstracter of property records, and designed by Otis Wheelock of the Chicago firm Boyington and Wheelock. The nomination calls it the first of Freeport's big houses and a center of the city's cultural life, with notable guests recorded on a plaque in the Taylor Room. Family tradition holds that runaway slaves were hidden in a concealed basement room during the Civil War. The Taylor family owned the house until 1944, when a bequest and a gift from family members led to the founding of the Stephenson County Historical Society, which operates it as a museum. Interior features include marble fireplaces, hand-carved moldings, a curving stair with coffin niches, and an arboretum on the grounds.","period_of_significance":"1857","architect_builder":"Otis Wheelock, Boyinton & Wheelock","architectural_style":"Italianate (Italian villa type)","criteria":[],"status_note":"Occupied and used as the Stephenson County Historical Society Museum, with a resident curator's quarters on the second floor; owned by the Freeport Park District. Condition is marked good and unaltered, with only minor interior and exterior changes.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:35.093669-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/66/8941/28894166/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/84001165.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/84001165/dd5aa7532c-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/84001165/dd5aa7532c-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 2.5","author":"IvoShandor","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Freeport_Il_Taylor_House4.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:Freeport_Il_Taylor_House4.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28894166","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Taylor_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7106269"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/stephenson-county/taylor-oscar-house-84001165/"}