Belleville Historic District

This 154-acre district covers much of Belleville's east side in St. Clair County, Illinois. It is dominated by 19th-century houses built of locally made red brick, most dating from about 1845 to 1875. The oldest documented house dates from 1830 and is in a simplified Greek Revival style. The district holds the heaviest concentration of a small one- to 1½-story masonry cottage type that the nomination describes as a local development, possibly shaped by German immigrants who arrived after 1830. Two-story Italianate brick houses form much of the background, with scattered Second Empire, Gothic Revival, late Federal and Queen Anne buildings. Belleville was platted in 1814 and became a major early center of German settlement, with an estimated 65 percent of residents of German birth or descent by 1870. Its economy long centered on coal, flour-milling, brewing and stove making. Some siding, parking lots and newer buildings weaken the streetscape, but the historic fabric remains largely intact.