The Building

Saved from the wrecking ball for one dollar in 1968.

The Italianate brick pile at 518 4th Avenue was built in 1884 as Rochelle's City & Town Hall — municipal offices, a council chamber, a courtroom, a two-cell jail, the town's first fire station, and, briefly, the public library. It served that combined civic role for the better part of a century.

By the late 1960s the city had built newer quarters and the old hall was on the demolition list. In 1968 the newly-formed Flagg Township Historical Society bought the building from the city for one dollar, on the condition it be preserved. The Society has held and operated it as a museum ever since.

Architecturally the building is a good regional example of the Italianate civic style — brick with stone trim, a bracketed cornice, tall segmental-arched windows, and a small central tympanum over the main door. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.