Mount Carroll Historic District

Mount Carroll's historic district takes in most of the central part of the Carroll County seat in northwestern Illinois, about 120 miles west of Chicago. It follows a north-south ridge and covers roughly 118 acres, with 272 structures. A commercial core of two- and three-story masonry buildings centers on the 1858 Greek Revival courthouse. South of it lie nineteenth-century residential streets, largely Italianate, with many frame houses and a significant minority of masonry ones, and brick-surfaced roads and mature trees add to the setting. At the south end is the former Shimer College campus, with fourteen masonry buildings, many Georgian Revival and rebuilt from 1905 after a fire. The town grew around a flouring mill in the early 1840s, became county seat in 1843, and gained a seminary in 1853. The district was listed because its streetscape preserves the character of a nineteenth-century rural county seat. Its boundary follows the built-up area as it stood late in that century.