Union House

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.

From the record

“The Union House, also known as the John Bower House, is a small, mostly Gothic Revival house in downtown Orangeville, Illinois, United States. The house, the first brick home in Orangeville, was built in 1849 by village founder John Bower.”
Wikipedia article Union House, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 16 National Register listings published here for Stephenson County · listed in 2000 · category: Building.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. 207 W. High St., Orangeville, 61060
When was it listed? May 2000
Category. building
Township. Oneco township
Architectural style. Gothic Revival
National Register reference number. 00000472 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

The ground it stands on

14,005 words

The chapter on Oneco Township in The History of Stephenson County, Illinois : Containing ... Biographical Sketches ... War Record ... Statistics ... Portraits of Early Settlers ... History of the Northwest, History of Illinois, &c. .., published 1880 names Orangeville. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.

School was taught in sight of the village as early as 1843. In 1851, a brick building was erected on Denio's Addition, east of the post office, which was occupied until the completion of the present structure, on the Orangeville road. This was accomplished in 1876, at a cost of $2,000 ; at present, one teacher is employed, who furnishes education and the attendant concomitants to an average daily attendance of sixty-five pupils. The annual expenses incident to maintaining the school are stated at $500.

Passage source: The History of Stephenson County, Illinois : Containing ... Biographical Sketches ... War Record ... Statistics ... Portraits of Early Settlers ... History of the Northwest, History of Illinois, &c. .., published 1880.

JOHN W. BArHOARDNER, with Deal & Swartz, Orangeville ; born in Stephenson Co., 111., Nov. 27 ; he went to Western College, at Western, Lynn Co., Iowa, took a classical course, and graduated in 1878; then he went into business there, but closed out and came to Orangeville, and went in with Deal & Co., general merchandise, and has been here since. In 1876, Aug. 17, he married Miss Frances Owen, of Pennsylvania, who was born in April, 1854 ; their child is named Katie C. Mr. Baumgardner is now studying for the United Brethren ministry ; his father died in 1855 ; his mother, Catharine, while a widow living at Buckeye Center, married Martin Bender, who died in 1876, in the fall ; she is now living with^er sister on the old estate.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Oneco Township - 14,005 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Fires near this property

1 since 2018

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 1 fire within 5 miles of Union House in 2018, burning about 3 acres in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Debris and open burning	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
11 April 2018	Debris and open burning	3.0 acres	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	61

Every fire recorded in Stephenson County

Mines and quarries near this property

9 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 9 workings within 5 miles of Union House: 6 past producers, 2 producers, 1 occurrence. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Clark Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
J. Wagner Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Limestone Prospect	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Occurrence
Monte Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Unnamed Limestone Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Unnamed Limestone Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Unnamed Limestone Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Unnamed Limestone Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Unnamed Limestone Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Stephenson County

Storms near this property

17 since 1999

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Orangeville, the town this property stands in, in 17 storm reports between 1999 and 2023: 9 thunderstorm wind, 6 hail, 1 lightning, 1 funnel cloud. The reports record 1 injury. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
May 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Orangeville	1 hurt, $40,000	Severe thunderstorm winds rolled a mobile home trailer over and destroyed it. The occupant of the trailer suffered 2 dislocated shoulders, cuts, and abrasions.
June 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Orangeville	$5,000	Trees down
August 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Orangeville	$5,000	Power lines down
June 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Orangeville	-	County dispatch reported a few trees blown down north of Freeport through Orangeville.
August 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Orangeville	-	Law enforcement reported a tree down on Rock Grove Road. The time of the event was estimated using radar.
July 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Orangeville	-	A trained spotter reported 8 to 12 inch diameter based on a photo shared on social media. The time of the event was estimated using radar.
May 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Orangeville	-	Power poles blown down near Orangeville.
August 2018	Funnel Cloud	Orangeville	-	A public report of a funnel cloud. A photo of the funnel cloud was relayed by local broadcast media.
July 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Orangeville	-	An amateur radio operator reported winds estimated up to 70 mph with tree branches blowing across the road.
June 2011	Hail	Orangeville	-	Quarter sized hail fell in Orangeville, IL at 932 pm CDT June 8.
June 2008	Hail	Orangeville	-	Nickel-sized hail fell near Orangeville, IL at 2:30 pm June 20.
June 2008	Hail	Orangeville	-	Golf ball-sized hail fell in Orangeville, IL around 2:30 pm June 20. This report was relayed by WREX-TV in Rockford.
September 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Orangeville	-	60 mph thunderstorm wind gust estimated by trained spotter.
July 1999	Lightning	Orangeville	-	A NWS spotter reported trees downed by lightning in Orangeville.
April 2020	Hail	Orangeville	-	no account filed
April 2013	Hail	Orangeville	-	no account filed
May 2000	Hail	Orangeville	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Stephenson County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
AF and AM Lodge 687, Orangeville	under 500 feet	2003
Central House	under 500 feet	1999
People's State Bank	0.2 miles	2004
William Ritzman House	0.7 miles	2000
John H. Addams Homestead	5.4 miles	1979
Charles Fehr Round Barn	6.6 miles	1984

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 00000472 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Stephenson County	All 16 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.