St. Louis Street Historic District

St. Louis Street in Edwardsville began as a service road for small farms and the county fairgrounds, then grew into the city's most fashionable residential address. Wealthy families built large homes on the south side by 1870, and an 1883 lot sale opened the north side to closer-spaced houses. Railroad-driven prosperity brought Queen Anne, Chateauesque, Italianate and Classical Revival homes, followed by Prairie School, Craftsman, Colonial Revival and bungalow designs through the 1930s. The district includes a Prairie School house by Walter Burley Griffin, built in 1909-10 for his brother Ralph, and Hadley House, home of Congressman W.F.L. Hadley and now school district offices. Other houses are tied to E. M. West, a delegate to the 1848 Illinois Constitutional Convention, and to local architects such as Charles Spillman and Michael B. Kane. Large lawns, mature trees and a winding street give the area a park-like character, and it reads as a compact record of changing American house styles.