Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
From the record
“The Alexander Briggs House is a historic house located at 210 Jackson St. in Charleston, Illinois. Prominent local stonemason Alexander Briggs built the stone house in 1894; it is the only stone house remaining in Coles County.”
Wikipedia article Alexander Briggs House, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 24 National Register listings published here for Coles County · listed in 1980 · category: Building.
National Register reference number.80001341- 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.
Charleston is pleasantly situated on the Indianapolis & St. Louis Railroad, very nearly the center of the county, and 117 miles from Indianapolis, 14-) miles from St. Louis and about the same distance south of Chicago. It is a handsome little city of some four thousand inhabitants, and noted for its energetic business men, its mills and manufactories, and its excellent schooh, churches, and the genei'al intelligence of its inhabitants. While it claims i:o very extensive manufacturing establishments, yet there are several located within its limits, which will receive appropriate mention in the proper place. It is well supplied with water works, and the pure, clear water of the Embarrass River is thus utilized in providing its people with a bountiful supply of the health-giving element.
Charleston was originally surveyed by Thomas Sconce, the first Surveyor of Coles County, and laid out by Commissioners (William Bowen, of Vermilioii County ; Jesse Essarey, of Clark, and Joshua Barber, of Crawford) appointed by the Legislature for the purpose of establishing the seat of justice of the county. The original town embraced, as shown by the plat on file in the Recorder's office, the west half of the southwest quarter of Section No. 11, in Township No. 12 north, of Range 9 east. It was resurveyed in June, 1839, bj Joseph Fowler, County Surveyor, and in this resurvey is noted the addition of Nathaniel Parker, of the east half of the southwest quarter of Section 10, etc. Since the first laying-out of Charleston, the records show some fifty additions and subdivisions to the original town by different individuals, giving it sufficient area, one would suppose, for a much larger city. It was named by the Commissioners who located the county seat, in honor of Charles Morton, one of the proprietors of the land on which it is situated, and who donated twenty acres of land for county purposes. In naming the place, they added the last syllable of Morton's last name to his first name, thus forming the word Charleston.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 1 fire within 5 miles of Alexander Briggs House
in 2019, burning under an acre 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.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
8 workings within 5 miles of Alexander Briggs House: 5 past producers, 3 producers.
3 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Charleston, the town this property stands in, in 61 storm reports between 1995 and 2025: 36 thunderstorm wind, 22 hail, 2 lightning, 1 flash flood.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. 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.
Thunderstorm winds damaged two barns and blew part of the roof off of a mall, causing damage to five buisnesses. Also, several downed trees damaged two homes and numerous power lines were blown down. Numerous trees were blown down and several windows were broken by flying debris at Eastern Illinois University. Damage was estimated around $200 thousand.
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.
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.
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