Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
From the record
“The Pennsylvania Avenue Historic District is a residential historic district located on the 1000 block of Pennsylvania Avenue in East St. The district includes four houses as well as the sites of two demolished homes.”
Wikipedia article Pennsylvania Avenue Historic District (East St. Louis, Illinois), CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 27 National Register listings published here for St. Clair County · listed in 1979 · category: District.
National Register reference number.79003166- 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.
In 1841 Capt. John Trendley, John Cames, Esq., and their neighbors in lUinois Town, now East St. Louis,'started a subscription hst to raise a fund for building a school house and hiring a teacher. $175.00 was subscribed, a carpenter was employed at $1.75 per day to erect a house. The site of this building was on the pubhc square in Illinois Town, afterwards the first ward of East St. Louis. This was a frame building 14 by 16 feet in size. It had room for two short rows of benches, a small desk for the teacher and a place for the water bucket and broom. The first pedagogue who presented himself was hired. No questions were asked as to his preparation or ability as a teacher. He was expected to keep the children out of mischief for six months of the year, including the winter season.
In 1859 Illinois Town was incorporated. In the spring of 1861 a new charter was granted, increasing the boundaries of the town and an election was held for or against changing the name to East St. Louis. This election resulted in 183 in favor of the change and 89 against.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 17 fires within 5 miles of Pennsylvania Avenue Historic District
between 2008 and 2014, burning about 8 acres in total. None started naturally. 2 were 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
8
Debris and open burning
4
Smoking
3
Arson/incendiarism
2
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
33 workings within 5 miles of Pennsylvania Avenue Historic District: 26 past producers, 2 plants, 2 producers, 2 prospects.
4 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Copper, Zinc, Refiner, Sulfur, Sulfuric Acid. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
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.
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.
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