The W.E. White Building is a historic commercial building located in downtown

Stockton, Illinois Stockton is a village in Jo Daviess County, Illinois, United States. The population was 1,862 at the 2010 census, down from 1,926 at the 2000 census. History The village of Stockton is the youngest village in Jo Daviess County. It was established ...

, USA. It was constructed in the Queen Anne style in 1897 and designed and built by Peter Schroeder. The building was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1997.

History

The W.E. White Building was constructed in 1897, one of many commercial structures erected following a devastating fire in downtown Stockton, Illinois. After the 1896 fire, William and Mary O'Rourke erected a wood-frame dry goods store at the location of the White Building. Mary O'Rourke soon became

postmaster A postmaster is the head of an individual post office, responsible for all postal activities in a specific post office. When a postmaster is responsible for an entire mail distribution organization (usually sponsored by a national government), ...

and the store Stockton's first post office. In August 1897 a small piece of the downtown lot owned by the O'Rourke's was sold to Wilbur E. White for

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3,500. White moved the old post office and dry goods store to the lot's rear and hired Peter Schroeder, a local architect and builder, to design and erect the W.E. White Building.Donth, Cynthia.
W.E. White Building
, (

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), National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, June 27, 1997, ''

Illinois Historic Preservation Agency The Illinois Historic Preservation Division, formerly Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, is a governmental agency of the U.S. state of Illinois, and is a division of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. It is tasked with the duty of m ...

'', accessed May 4, 2008.

Architecture

The W.E. White Building is an example of late 19th century Queen Anne commercial architecture. The red brick building is 25

feet The foot ( : feet) is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg made ...

wide by 90 feet long and sits on the northwest corner of Front and Main Street in downtown Stockton. Its main entrance sits diagonally on the building's southeast corner. Multiple elements of Queen Anne style are present on the White Building they include: a projecting cone shaped

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * Mi ...

, metal wrapped oriel

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a Gulf (geography), gulf, sea, sound (geography), sound, or bight (geogra ...

, decorative

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedimen ...

s, a cannonball

finial A finial (from '' la, finis'', end) or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the Apex (geometry), apex of a d ...

. The building also displays a shift toward Classical influences in its garland swags, classical

column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...

s and

acanthus leaves The acanthus ( grc, ἄκανθος) is one of the most common plant forms to make foliage ornament and decoration, and even as the leaf distinguishing the heraldic coronet of a manorial lord from other coronets of royalty or nobility, which us ...

Historic significance

The late 19th century Queen Anne White Building exemplifies an era of optimism in Stockton as the city strove to rebuild after a destructive fire in 1896. The building is a prominent landmark in downtown Stockton; its architectural features allow it to stand out as one of the most decorative downtown buildings in Stockton. The W.E. White Building was added to the U.S.

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

on November 7, 1997.

References

External links

Property Information Report
W.E. White Building,

{{National Register of Historic Places National Register of Historic Places in Jo Daviess County, Illinois Commercial buildings completed in 1897 Buildings and structures in Jo Daviess County, Illinois Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois Queen Anne architecture in Illinois