1,000th Mesker found in Illinois

In the nearly 20 years of the Mesker documentation project, we have celebrated many milestones and achievements—from the 2,000th to the 5,000th Mesker found nationwide, to the many states with 100 Meskers in between. One of the earlier major milestones came about in Illinois, where this initiative was born.

When in May 2007, the Old Exchange National Bank in Okawville, Illinois, was honored as the 500th Mesker facade identified in the state, we made it a big deal. This was during my first tour of duty at the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and in the midst of “one of the most successful historical detective cases ever.” We issued a press release and had a celebratory event in front of the building with descendants of Fred Moehle, who built the structure in 1910, and David Mesker, grandson of Frank Mesker, co-founder of Mesker Brothers Iron Works which supplied the building’s pressed metal cornices and moldings, ornamental steel box columns, steel sills, and [in 2007] only the second self-supporting metal Mesker Brothers awning identified in Illinois. We even developed a special commemorative certificate that was presented to the Moehles, Mr. Mesker, and the building’s owner, Village of Okawville. It felt great to honor all involved, past and present, while simultaneously celebrating the ‘got mesker?’ initiative’s soaring success.

16 years and 500 Meskers later, we have reached another monumental milestone in Illinois, one that I did not think would be possible. At least not in 2007.

404 S. Main St, Liberty, IL. The 1,000th Mesker building identified in Illinois features cast iron columns by George L. Mesker & Co. The center floral motif was modified in order to fit on the shortened column. At right is the full, unmodified pattern.

The milestone Mesker was discovered in Liberty albeit with significantly less fanfare this time around. That’s due partly to the fact that for quite some time now, the State Historic Preservation Office’s role in this initiative isn’t what it was at the outset; due to the wider, nationwide (or even international) scope of the effort, it just makes more sense for me to oversee this on my own time, without the taxpayer subsidy. Secondly, the building marking this momentous achievement is somewhat… uninspired. Aside from the two cast iron columns by George L. Mesker & Co., no other historic materials are visible and the building is more of a monument to the traveling vinyl siding salesman than to its Mesker lineage. Hopefully, something else survives underneath and could be revealed in the future. One curious aspect of the cast iron columns is their modified design. The columns are short, perhaps 8 feet or so, and in order to accommodate their reduced height Mesker was unable to reproduce the long, curving, floral shaft motif in its entirety. This actually may demonstrate that the factory casting process involved separate or customizable pattern molds—one for the body of the column and at least another for the floral pattern in the shaft.

Below is the breakdown of Illinois’s 1,000 Meskers (a full database listing can be accessed here):

504 by George L. Mesker & Co. (GLM)
488 by Mesker Brothers Iron Works (MB)
7 by both
1 by J.B. Mesker & Son (JBM)
235 complete “house fronts” (47 GLM, 188 MB)
204 demolished (59 GLM, 144 MB, 1 both)
288 buildings are one-story (153 GLM, 133 MB, 2 both), 669 are two-story (338 GLM, 325 MB, 5 both, 1 JBM), 36 are three-story (12 GLM, 24 MB), 4 are four-story (1 GLM, 3 MB), and 3 are five-story or taller (MB)
352 towns (104 with GLM, 155 with MB, 93 with both)—there are several towns with large groupings of surviving Meskers including Palestine (16), McLeansboro (14), Altamont (12), Chrisman (10), Flora (10), and Mount Carroll (9). A brief synopsis of each can be found here.

1,000 is a lot. A lot of anything, really. Now place the 1,000 in a single state and consider that it’s more than a 6th of all the rest, and it is really A LOT. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, however, that so many were identified in Illinois which by my estimates originally had a combined 6,631 buildings with Mesker components (3,714 by Mesker Brothers and 2,917 by George L. Mesker & Co.), more than any other state. (Indiana is a distant second with an estimated original total of 4,936 Meskers and 673 identified to date—we celebrated hitting the 500 mark in that state back in 2014). Why? Perhaps because the state was positioned between the two Mesker factories and building owners did not have an allegiance to either company and purchased heavily from both. For Mesker Brothers Iron Works, a total of 237,162 catalogs distributed in Illinois between 1888 and 1909 (third most nationwide) certainly did not hurt. And George L. Mesker & Co.’s Illinois business was so good that in their 1905 testimonials catalog they did not even bother to provide a list of customers, boasting that their “reputation for honest values and modern designs of store fronts is so well established in [Illinois] that many customers place orders with us unsolicited.”

Following are some favorite Meskers in Illinois to date (it’s really difficult to narrow it down from 1,000 buildings and nearly 5,000 images!). Please keep in mind that many of these photos aren’t new, so while I hope the buildings are still around, they may not be, or they may have been altered: