Oregon Commercial Historic District

Downtown Oregon, Illinois, the seat of Ogle County, contains a compact commercial district of a little over five blocks along the Rock River. It brings together the 1891 Romanesque Revival courthouse, a 1930 Colonial Revival post office, a 1922 Coliseum with a public swimming pool, a 1920 city hall, former theaters, a Masonic temple, a livery stable and the large Schiller Piano Company factory. Commercial buildings range from mid-nineteenth-century limestone structures to Italianate brick blocks, Arts and Crafts storefronts and Art Deco and Art Moderne designs. Unusually, commerce grew on only two sides of the courthouse square, likely because of the early mills along the river. The square also holds a Lorado Taft soldiers' monument, a 1950 war memorial and an 1896 cast iron fountain. The district has 44 contributing and 11 non-contributing buildings, plus contributing structures and objects. It was listed because it documents the town's development from the 1850s to the mid-twentieth century in unusual variety.