John H. Jones House

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.

From the record

“Jones House is a Queen Anne-style house built in Janesville, Wisconsin in 1890, now carefully restored. In 2007 the house was added to the State Register of Historic Places and to the National Register of Historic Places the following year.”
Wikipedia article John H. Jones House, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 141 National Register listings published here for Rock County · listed in 2008 · 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 as contributing to the listing.
Listed as. Jones, John H., House - the National Register files a house under its owner's surname.
Address. 538 S. Main St., Janesville, 53545
When was it listed? March 2008
Category. building
City. Janesville city
Architectural style. Queen Anne style architecture in the United States
National Register reference number. 08000186 - 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

70,689 words

The chapter on Janesville City in History of Rock County, and Transactions of the Rock County Agricultural Society and Mechanics' Institute, published 1856 names Janesville. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.

Janesville is the County Seat of Rock County. The city is beautifully located on the Rock River, nearly in the center of the county, twelve miles north of the Illinois State line, sixty-five miles west of Racine, the same distance from Milwaukee, and forty miles S. E. of Madison. Its history, so far as known, like most of the towns of the west, is comprised within a compass of twenty years. A silence rests upon the early history of this spot which the antiquarian in vain attempts to break. There are no ancient records of primeval times, no traditionary legends which carry us back to' the dreamy past, not even a national ballad to commemorate the deeds <rf the s;reat and good who here lived and died.

Passage source: History of Rock County, and Transactions of the Rock County Agricultural Society and Mechanics' Institute, published 1856.

This house was first kept by Mr. Janes, who was succeeded by Mr. Chas. Stevens, who also took charge of the ferry, which, in the mean time, had been established by Mn Janes and Aaron Walker. Mr. J. P. Dickson afterwards took charge of the public house and ferry, in which place he continued until the " Janesville Stage House ''was erected, in the fall of 1838, by Mr. Stevens, who was duly installed landlord of one of the first class public houses west of Lake MichigaUi That original building was 30 by 40 feet on the ground, and two stories in perpendicular height.

Passage source: History of Rock County, and Transactions of the Rock County Agricultural Society and Mechanics' Institute, published 1856.

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 Janesville City - 70,689 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Fires near this property

11 since 2018

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 11 fires within 5 miles of John H. Jones House between 2018 and 2019, burning about 2 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	9
Smoking	1
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
7 August 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	6330
8 July 2019	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	5344
7 July 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	5449
5 June 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	4517
29 April 2018	Smoking	1.0 acres	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	3368
29 April 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	3363
13 April 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	2895
11 April 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	2849

Every fire recorded in Rock County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 11 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 11 workings within 5 miles of John H. Jones House: 5 past producers, 5 producers, 1 unknown. 5 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone. 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
Bass Quarry	Stone	Unknown
Austin Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Beaudin Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
County Shop Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Frank Brothers	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Gunn Pit	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Janesville Pit & Mill	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
O'Leary Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Rock County Pioneer Crusher 493	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Townline Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Every working recorded in Rock County

Storms near this property

60 of 67 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Janesville, the town this property stands in, in 67 storm reports between 1994 and 2006: 31 thunderstorm wind, 14 hail, 12 lightning, 4 flood. The reports record 7 injuries. 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
June 1998	Lightning	Janesville	5 hurt	no account filed
August 1998	Flash Flood	Janesville	1 hurt, $1,500,000	no account filed
September 1997	Strong Wind	Janesville	1 hurt, $1,000	no account filed
August 1998	Flash Flood	Janesville	$550,000	no account filed
May 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	$175,000	no account filed
July 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	$100,000	no account filed
July 1998	Lightning	Janesville	$50,000	no account filed
May 1999	Lightning	Janesville	$40,000	no account filed
May 1999	Lightning	Janesville	$40,000	no account filed
July 1999	Lightning	Janesville	$35,000	no account filed
March 2002	Lightning	Janesville	$30,000	no account filed
May 2000	Lightning	Janesville	$25,000	no account filed
August 2002	Lightning	Janesville	$20,000	no account filed
June 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	$20,000	no account filed
June 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	$19,000	no account filed
July 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	$15,000	no account filed
July 2000	Lightning	Janesville	$10,000	no account filed
May 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	$7,000	no account filed
April 1996	Lightning	Janesville	$7,000	no account filed
April 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	$5,000	no account filed
June 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	$4,000	no account filed
August 2002	Lightning	Janesville	$2,500	no account filed
July 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	$2,000	no account filed
July 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	$1,500	no account filed
June 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	$1,500	no account filed
March 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	$1,000	no account filed
February 1999	Lightning	Janesville	$1,000	no account filed
June 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	$1,000	no account filed
September 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	$1,000	no account filed
May 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	$500	no account filed
May 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	-	Trees and powerlines down.
June 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	-	Trees down.
June 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	-	Widespread tree damage.
August 2006	Hail	Janesville	-	no account filed
March 2005	Hail	Janesville	-	no account filed
May 2005	Hail	Janesville	-	no account filed
June 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	-	no account filed
June 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	-	no account filed
June 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	-	no account filed
June 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	-	no account filed
May 2005	Hail	Janesville	-	no account filed
May 2005	Hail	Janesville	-	no account filed
June 2005	Hail	Janesville	-	no account filed
September 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	-	no account filed
May 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	-	no account filed
November 2003	Heavy Rain	Janesville	-	no account filed
July 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	-	no account filed
August 2003	Hail	Janesville	-	no account filed
April 2002	Hail	Janesville	-	no account filed
July 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	-	no account filed
April 2001	Hail	Janesville	-	no account filed
June 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Janesville	-	no account filed
June 2000	Funnel Cloud	Janesville	-	no account filed
May 2000	Hail	Janesville	-	no account filed
July 2000	Flood	Janesville	-	no account filed
August 2000	Flood	Janesville	-	no account filed
February 1999	Hail	Janesville	-	no account filed
June 1999	Flood	Janesville	-	no account filed
June 1998	Hail	Janesville	-	no account filed
June 1998	Hail	Janesville	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Rock 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
Janesville High School	0.1 miles	1999
Lovejoy and Merrill-Nowlan Houses	0.4 miles	1980
Janesville Public Library	0.4 miles	1981
Janesville Pumping Station	0.4 miles	1985
Old Fourth Ward Historic District	0.5 miles	1990
Courthouse Hill Historic District	0.5 miles	1986

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 08000186 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Rock County	All 141 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.