{"nrhp_refnum":"94000436","name":"Rutter Store","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"7346 IL 15","address_restricted":false,"city":"St. Libory","county":"St. Clair County","state":"IL","lat":38.36376254900006,"lon":-89.71344635599996,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1994-05-06","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-and-a-half story brick general store at 7346 State Highway 15 in St. Libory, St. Clair County, Illinois, built in 1849 by Heinrich Rutter, with a smokehouse and cream shed on the same lot.","why_significant":"The store is significant under commerce for its role in St. Libory's commercial development. It served as the village's general store from 1849 to 1986 and as its post office from 1856 to 1990. It also housed a tavern, a doctor's office and a hotel, and was run by successive members of the Rutter family.","narrative":"Rutter Store is a large brick building in St. Libory, Illinois, about 40 miles from St. Louis. Heinrich Rutter, a Prussian immigrant, built it in 1849 with local labor and bricks made on the site. A brick addition followed in 1859, and a wood-frame wing was added in the early 1900s. The walls are three bricks thick, and the building has double end chimneys, a corbeled brick cornice and roughly 10,000 square feet of floor space. Two frame outbuildings, a smokehouse from the 1870s and a cream shed from the 1890s, stand to the west. For generations the store was the commercial center of the village, selling groceries, hardware, dry goods and clothing and buying produce, cream and hides from area farmers. It held the post office from 1856 to 1990 and also housed a tavern, a physician's office and rooms for travelers. Members of the Rutter family ran the business until 1976, and general merchandise sales continued under another operator until 1986.","period_of_significance":"1849-1944","architect_builder":"Rutter, Heinrich, Builder","architectural_style":"Mid-19th Century","criteria":["A"],"status_note":"The general store ceased operating in 1986 and the post office moved to a new building in 1990. The form refers to planned rehabilitation, including removal of simulated brick sheathing and reinstallation of original shutters.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:37.209281-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/46/8941/28894146/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/94000436.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/94000436/b03b05ed4e-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/94000436/b03b05ed4e-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Nyttend","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rutter_Store_in_St_Libory.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Nyttend</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rutter_Store_in_St_Libory.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28894146","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutter_Store","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16899537"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/st-clair-county/rutter-store-94000436/"}