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Photograph of John R. Oughton House
Photograph by IvoShandor, CC BY-SA 3.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

John R. Oughton House

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

From the record

“Oughton House, commonly known as The Lodge or the Keeley Estate, is a Victorian mansion located in the village of Dwight, Illinois, United States. The grounds remain mostly unchanged since the house was moved from its original site in 1894 and remodeled a year later.”

Wikipedia article John R. Oughton House, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 15 National Register listings published here for Livingston County · listed in 1980 · 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 2 buildingss, 1 site, 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
  • Listed as. Oughton, John R., House - the National Register files a house under its owner's surname.
  • Address. 101 W. South St., Dwight, 60420
  • When was it listed? September 1980
  • Category. building
  • Township. Dwight township
  • Architectural style. Victorian architecture
  • National Register reference number. 80001383 - 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

8,642 words

The chapter on Dwight Township in The History of Livingston County, Illinois : Containing a History of the County, Its Cities, Towns, &c. .., published 1878 names Dwight. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.

Dwight is situated on the main line of the Chicago, Alton & St. Louis Railroad, at the junction of its Western Division, and is about seventy miles from Chicago, and twenty miles from Pontiac, the county seat. It is a place of about 2,000 inhabitants, is the third in size, and one of the most important shipping points in the county. The repair shops and the round house of the Western Division of the Chicago, Alton & St. Louis Railroad are located here, as well as the headquarters of the bridge builders of the main line. The tank men were stationed here until recently, when they removed their headquarters to Bloomington. A large number of men employed by the two roads live in the village of D wight, and have all their interests centering here.

Passage source: The History of Livingston County, Illinois : Containing a History of the County, Its Cities, Towns, &c. .., published 1878.

It was surveyed by Nelson Buck, Deputy County Surveyor, for Amos Edwards, the regular Surveyor of the county, in the Fall of 1853, for R. P. Morgan, Jr., Jas. C. Spencer, John Lathrop and J. and K. W. Fell, who owned the land on which it stands. The original town embraced the southwest quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 4 ; also the northwest quarter of the northeast quarter, and the northeast quarter of the northwest (quarter of Section 9, Township 30 north, Range 7 east of the Third Principal Meridian, and on the 30th day of January, 1854, was dedicated by Mr. Morgan, and the plat admitted to record. The following are his dedicator^/ words : " To be known as the town of Dwight, and the streets and alleys described on the town plat are hereby donated to the public." It was named for Henry Dwight, of New York, who was a capitalist, and furnished the money to build the road from Joliet to Bloomington, known now as the Chicago, Alton & St. Louis Railroad. He is said to have lost a fortune in the construction of this road ; and as a compliment to him, and in honor of his noble deeds, his name was given to the new village, which, in spite of efforts to change it, it has ever since borne. A " quill " of the time thus poetized :

Passage source: The History of Livingston County, Illinois : Containing a History of the County, Its Cities, Towns, &c. .., published 1878.

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 Dwight Township - 8,642 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Fires near this property

38 since 2003

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 38 fires within 5 miles of John R. Oughton House between 2003 and 2005, burning about 41 acres in total. None started naturally. 3 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/undetermined29
Arson/incendiarism3
Equipment and vehicle use2
Recreation and ceremony2
Debris and open burning2

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

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
9 September 2005Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIllinois State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
24 September 2004Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIllinois State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
21 September 2004Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIllinois State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
20 September 2003Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIllinois State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
17 September 2003Recreation and ceremony1.0 acresIllinois State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
11 September 2005Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIllinois State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
11 September 2005Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIllinois State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
8 July 2005Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIllinois State Fire Marshal's Officenot named

Every fire recorded in Livingston County

Storms near this property

32 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Dwight, the town this property stands in, in 32 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 16 thunderstorm wind, 11 hail, 3 flood, 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
June 1998FloodDwight$250,000Thunderstorms dumped 4 to 6 inches of rain in northeast Livingston County. A cooperative observer at Dwight measured 4.75 inches. Numerous roads, yards and basements were flooded. A car dealership suffered about $250,000 in damages when the parking lot flooded. Gooseberry Creek and Brewster Creek flooded. Illinois Highway 47 was closed.
June 2008Thunderstorm WindDwight$10,000A large tree was snapped off a few feet above the ground. The tree landed on a house causing damage.
August 2008Thunderstorm WindDwight$3,000Trees, tree limbs and power lines were blown down between Dwight and Campus.
May 2008Thunderstorm WindDwight$500Shingles were blown off a house and small tree limbs were blown down.
May 2025Thunderstorm WindDwight-Large tree limbs were snapped off of trees.
July 2025Thunderstorm WindDwight-A photo showed a large tree limb that was snapped.
August 2022Thunderstorm WindDwight-Small tree limbs were blown down.
August 2020Thunderstorm WindDwight-Numerous metal farm buildings were damaged including roofs and metal siding blown off. A large tree was snapped and fell onto a house.
June 2020Thunderstorm WindDwight-At least two semi trucks were blown over just west of Dwight.
August 2014FloodDwight-Street flooding up to two feet deep was reported in Dwight.
January 2008HailDwight-Penny size hail was reported at Gardner Road and Route 47.
January 2008Thunderstorm WindDwight-Wind gusts were estimated to 60 mph at Gardner Road and Route 47.
May 2006FloodDwight-Six to twelve inches of water over roads.
October 2006Thunderstorm WindDwight-A farm grain wagon was blown over.
March 2005HailDwight-Penny sized hail was reported at the intersection of Rt. 17 and I-55.
May 2004HailDwight-Nickel to golf ball size hail was reported.
May 2004Flash FloodDwight-Roads were closed due to flooding.
May 2004Thunderstorm WindDwight-Trees were blown down in the road causing traffic problems.
May 2004Tornado (F0)Dwight-An experienced storm spotter and chaser reported a tornado 6 miles southwest of Dwight. Trees were damaged in this area. It had a brief narrow path.
May 2004Thunderstorm WindDwight-Trees were blown down on Route 17.
April 2023HailDwight-no account filed
June 2015HailDwight-no account filed
April 2014HailDwight-no account filed
May 2012HailDwight-no account filed
May 2006HailDwight-no account filed
September 2005HailDwight-no account filed
April 2003Thunderstorm WindDwight-no account filed
May 2000Thunderstorm WindDwight-no account filed
May 1999Thunderstorm WindDwight-no account filed
May 1998HailDwight-no account filed
January 1996Thunderstorm WindDwight-no account filed
April 1994HailDwight-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Livingston 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

4 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.

Photograph PropertyDistance Listed
Dwight Chicago and Alton Railroad Depotunder 500 feet1982
Pioneer Gothic Church0.6 miles1983
Ambler's Texaco Gas Station0.9 miles2001
Standard Oil Gasoline Station7.8 miles1997

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 80001383 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Livingston CountyAll 15 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.
  • 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.