Delavan Commercial Historic District

Locust Street forms the spine of Delavan's historic downtown in Tazewell County, Illinois, where 26 buildings stand in a two-block area, 20 of them contributing. Nearly all date from before 1900 or shortly after. The oldest, at 404 and 406 Locust, are Italianate brick stores from about 1860. Later buildings add more ornate Italianate cornices and window hoods, and the Masonic Hall at 401 Locust carries a Queen Anne turret. The street's most striking feature is its pressed metal upper fronts and its cast iron storefront columns and pilasters, which rarely repeat a design. A fire in 1888 destroyed five wooden buildings on the west side, and masonry replacements followed. A 1911 stone-faced concrete block lodge building marks the later end of the range. The district is significant as a record of commercial architecture in a farm and grain-shipping town that grew with railroads and surrounding agriculture.