{"nrhp_refnum":"95001240","name":"Oak Hill Cemetery","other_names":[],"category":"site","location":{"address":"1000 Blk. N. Main St. (IL 97 and 100)","address_restricted":false,"city":"Lewistown","county":"Fulton County","state":"IL","lat":40.40237503950004,"lon":-90.1568794811605,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1995-11-13","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Literature"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Oak Hill Cemetery is a historic burial ground on the west side of Main Street in Lewistown, Fulton County, Illinois. The nominated portion is the older southern section of about 13 acres, within a cemetery now totaling 29 1/4 acres.","why_significant":"The cemetery is nominated for its link to Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology, which drew on people buried here during the years Masters lived in Lewistown. The nomination counts 37 markers tied to 46 persons identified with specific poems. It argues the Anthology and its setting matter as literature that records the social and cultural history of a small Midwestern town.","narrative":"Oak Hill Cemetery lies on the west side of Main Street, about half a mile north of downtown Lewistown, Illinois. The listed area is the older southern section, roughly 13 acres of hills, valleys and gentle slopes shaded by old oaks, hickories and cedars. Headstones are mostly simple white stone, marble or granite, with Victorian obelisks and a few ornate iron fences around family plots. A brick retaining wall along Main Street was built by the WPA in the 1930s, though part of it collapsed in 1992. The cemetery was the part of town familiar to poet Edgar Lee Masters while he lived in Lewistown, and it inspired his Spoon River Anthology. Thirty-seven markers connected with 46 people have been tied to specific poems, including those of William Cullen Bryant, Nathan Beadles and Leonard Fulton Ross's family. The cemetery was listed because the Anthology, a widely read work of American poetry, portrays small-town life through epitaphs, and this place is its setting.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"Still an active cemetery, with burials continuing to the present. A 40-foot stretch of the 1930s WPA brick retaining wall along Main Street collapsed in 1992, and the wall is described as endangered.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:37.390322-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/88/8928/28892888/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/95001240.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/95001240/4bfdb41103-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/95001240/4bfdb41103-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"Kenrossalex","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edgar_Masters_Memorial.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Kenrossalex</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edgar_Masters_Memorial.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28892888","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Hill_Cemetery_(Lewistown,_Illinois)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18355691"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/fulton-county/oak-hill-cemetery-95001240/"}