{"nrhp_refnum":"99000164","name":"Country Tea Room","other_names":["Milk Pail Restaurant"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"14N630 IL 25","address_restricted":false,"city":"East Dundee","county":"Kane County","state":"IL","lat":42.04074156200005,"lon":-88.25914267599995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1999-02-25","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A former roadside restaurant building at Clearbrook Farm on Illinois Route 25 in East Dundee, Kane County, Illinois. It combines a late-1860s Gabled Ell farmhouse with a one-story addition built in 1926 for the tea room.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the property is locally significant under Criterion A for commerce as a roadside business of the 1920s and 1930s. It operated as a tea room from 1926 to 1939, when new roads and affordable cars created a new kind of leisure traveler. Its concept also shaped the later Milk Pail Restaurant on the same farm.","narrative":"Along Illinois Route 25 in East Dundee stands a wood-frame farmhouse that doubled as a roadside restaurant. The two-story Gabled Ell house, with some Italianate details, was built in the late 1860s as a tenant farmhouse on Increase C. Bosworth's land. In 1926 Max McGraw, who had bought the farm, added a one-story wing for the Country Tea Room. The restaurant was known for chicken and biscuits and drew diners from far away. It operated until 1939, when the building was converted to offices and living quarters. Its significance lies in commerce. New concrete highways, including Route 25, completed in 1929, and rising car ownership created travelers who wanted a welcoming, homelike place to eat. The tea room's success set the pattern for the Milk Pail Restaurant that followed on the farm. The house keeps much of its historic character, though its porch is a 1980s replacement and nearby farm buildings have been heavily altered.","period_of_significance":"1926 - 1939","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Late Victorian (Gabled Ell with some Italianate influence)","criteria":["A"],"status_note":"Used as a retail store from 1987 to 1997; the former tea room dining room was restored to one open room in preparation for a new tenant, and the house received a new roof in 1997.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:37.279786-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/96/8931/28893196/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/99000164.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/99000164/823b1d37b3-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/99000164/823b1d37b3-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Andrew Jameson","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CountryTeaRoomEastDundeeIL.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Andrew Jameson</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:CountryTeaRoomEastDundeeIL.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28893196","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_Pail_Restaurant","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6858003"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/kane-county/country-tea-room-99000164/"}