The Potter House is a historic building located in

Rock Island, Illinois Rock Island is a city in Rock Island County, Illinois, United States, and its county seat. The population was 37,108 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Located at the confluence of the Rock River (Mississippi River tributary), Rock a ...

, United States. It was designated a Rock Island Landmark in 1987, listed individually on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1989, and the house was included as a

contributing property In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic dist ...

in the Broadway Historic District in 1998.

Minnie Potter

The home was built by Minnie Potter who was the president of J.W. Potter Company, which owned the ''

Rock Island Argus ''The Dispatch–Argus'' is a daily morning newspaper in Davenport, Iowa, and circulated primarily throughout the Illinois side of the Quad Cities — Moline, East Moline, Rock Island and Rock Island County, but also for sale in retail establis ...

'' newspaper. Her husband had bought the newspaper in 1882 when it had only 500 subscribers. He died at the age of 36 in 1898. Minnie was 32 at the time and a mother of three young children. She took over the leadership of the paper and raised her family. She never remarried. The ''Argus'' prospered under her leadership and she directed the construction of a new newspaper plant on Fourth Avenue in 1925. Mrs. Potter had the home built in 1907 and lived there until her death, and the home remained in the family until 1983. The Potter family sold the newspaper in 1985.

Architecture

The home was designed by Rock Island architect George Stauduhar in the

Colonial Revival The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture. The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the arch ...

style. It also includes elements of the

Prairie School Prairie School is a late 19th and early 20th-century architectural style, most common in the Midwestern United States. The style is usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped i ...

style. The Colonial Revival style is found in the main

façade A façade or facade (; ) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loanword from the French language, French (), which means "frontage" or "face". In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important asp ...

’s symmetry, door

sidelight A sidelight or sidelite in a building is a window, usually with a vertical emphasis, that flanks a door or a larger window. Sidelights are narrow, usually stationary and found immediately adjacent to doorways.Barr, Peter.Illustrated Glossary", ...

s, the elliptical

fanlight A fanlight is a form of lunette window (transom window), often semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing (window), glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open Hand fan, fan. It is placed over another window or a doorway, ...

above the door, and in the multiple panes of glass of the upper sashes on the windows. Many of the widows, however, are characteristic of the Prairie style. They have a larger sash with a single pane of glass and are topped with a smaller upper sash. The exterior of the house is covered in

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and ...

. The texture on the lower half of the wall is rough, while the top is smoother. The interior features leather embossed wall coverings in the front entrance, a grand central staircase,

mahogany Mahogany is a straight- grained, reddish-brown timber of three tropical hardwood species of the genus ''Swietenia'', indigenous to the AmericasBridgewater, Samuel (2012). ''A Natural History of Belize: Inside the Maya Forest''. Austin: Universit ...

paneling,

stained glass Stained glass refers to coloured glass as a material or art and architectural works created from it. Although it is traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensio ...

, and six fireplaces.

References

{{NRHP in Rock Island County, Illinois Houses completed in 1907 Colonial Revival architecture in Illinois Buildings and structures in Rock Island, Illinois Rock Island Landmark National Register of Historic Places in Rock Island County, Illinois Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois Houses in Rock Island County, Illinois Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register in Illinois