{"nrhp_refnum":"86000138","name":"Petersburg Historic District (Boundary Increase)","other_names":["See Also:Petersburg Historic District"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Smoot Hotel, corner of Sixth and Douglas","address_restricted":false,"city":"Petersburg","county":"Menard County","state":"IL","lat":40.01146062650005,"lon":-89.84813444754793,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1986-01-31","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"The Smoot (New Salem) Hotel is a three-story brick commercial hotel building at the northeast corner of 6th and Douglas Streets on the Petersburg courthouse square, Menard County, Illinois. It was built in 1897-1898 for William C. Smoot, with Aaron Thomas White as contractor.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the hotel is a highly intact late nineteenth-century commercial building and one of the architectural keystones of the courthouse square, overlooked in the original district nomination. It also represents the central-city commercial hotel tied to rail travel and has a historic link to the Old Salem Chautauqua movement.","narrative":"Completed in August 1898, the Smoot Hotel occupies the northeast corner of the Petersburg courthouse square. William C. Smoot, a wealthy local businessman and former county sheriff, had an earlier small brick hotel demolished to make way for it, and Aaron Thomas White served as contractor. The three-story, flat-roofed building of unpainted pressed brick has arched upper windows, a rusticated first level, corbelled brickwork, terra-cotta medallions and a metal cornice framed by corner towers. It contained thirty guest rooms, a lobby with an oak staircase, and ground-floor shops. The hotel hosted club meetings, banquets and political receptions, and it ran a shuttle to the nearby Old Salem Chautauqua grounds. For years it was the tallest brick building in town. Later owners shifted it toward weekly lodging and informal dining, and it closed in late 1978. The district boundary was extended to include the hotel because it was an intact, prominent building that the original district nomination had omitted.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Contractor: Aaron Thomas White; original owner William C. Smoot","architectural_style":"Romanesque Revival touches (arched windows, rusticated lower level, suggested corner towers)","criteria":[],"status_note":"The hotel has been closed since late 1978. Some entryways have been altered with metal-framed doors and low stone walls, described as reversible.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:35.254534-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/13/8937/28893713/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/86000138.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/86000138/468829756b-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/86000138/468829756b-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 2.0","author":"Matt Turner","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Menard_County_Courthouse,_IL_(4504031312).jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Matt Turner</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 2.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Menard_County_Courthouse,_IL_(4504031312).jpg"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"76000722","name":"Petersburg Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/illinois/petersburg-historic-district-76000722/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28893713","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petersburg_Historic_District_(Illinois)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14688018"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/menard-county/petersburg-historic-district-boundary-increase-86000138/"}