What to See in Jacksonville - Top Sights and Attractions

Courthouse. The Morgan County Courthouse, located at 300 W. State St. in Jacksonville, is the county courthouse of Morgan County, Illinois. The courthouse, the third built in Morgan County, was constructed from 1868 to 1869. Chicago architect Gurdon P. Randall designed the courthouse in a combination of the Italianate and Second Empire styles. The design is considered unusual among county courthouses, as counties generally preferred more traditional designs. Randall's design features an arched loggia surrounding the building's southern entrance, asymmetrical towers at the southern corners with mansard roofs and bracketed cornices, arched dormers within the towers' mansards, and an assortment of round-head and bulls-eye windows. One of the towers houses a 4,000 pounds bell, which was intended to be part of a clock that was never installed. A 9-foot statue of Lady Justice, carved from a single block of pine, originally topped the front entrance; however, after losing its arms around 1872, the statue disappeared in the early 1900s and was never recovered.

The courthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 19, 1986.^[3]

Historical place in Jacksonville, Illinois. The Jacksonville Historic District is a historic district encompassing 696 buildings in Jacksonville, Illinois. The buildings in the district were mainly constructed from 1829 to the 1930s and represent nearly every popular architectural style from the period. The Greek Revival, Italianate, and Queen Anne styles are especially prevalent in the district. The district includes the campuses of two prominent Jacksonville educational institutions: Illinois College and the Illinois School for the Deaf. Illinois College, the first college in Illinois to grant a degree, was founded in 1829; its first building, Beecher Hall, is the oldest building in the district. The Illinois School for the Deaf was established in 1839 by the Illinois Legislature for the education of hearing-impaired students. Aside from these two institutions, the majority of the district is residential and includes many of Jacksonville's most historically and architecturally significant homes. The district is considered to have retained its historic character well, as 650 of its buildings are considered contributing buildings and the number of recent buildings in the district has been called "remarkably low".

The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 9, 1978.^[5]

Historical place in Jacksonville, Illinois. The Jacksonville Labor Temple is a historic building located at 228 South Mauvaisterre Street in Jacksonville, Illinois. The Jacksonville Trades and Labor Assembly, an organization of Jacksonville labor union members formed in 1892, constructed the building in 1904 to serve as its meeting house. Union construction workers volunteered to build the building, while its remaining costs were funded by a tax on the other unions. The building was the third labor temple built in the United States, after buildings in Los Angeles and Belleville, Illinois. Jacksonville's unions have held their meetings in the building since its construction, and it is now the oldest labor temple which is still in use.

The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 13, 1980.^[6]