Caledonia

*A great place to visit for antique shopping.

Caledonia Bellevue Presbyterian Church

The first Presbyterian Church west of the Mississippi River was the Concord Presbyterian Church in Bellevue, established in 1816. This log church was about 1 1/2 miles northeast of Caledonia, and was used until it burned down in 1839. A brick church was then erected on that site, which served as the second church, until the present building was put up in 1870 to 1872. Thus the Bellevue Presbyterian Church in Caledonia is a lineal descendant of this first church, and is the oldest public building still standing in Caledonia.

The third and current Bellevue Presbyterian church is built of brick on limestone foundations, and displays elements stylistically transitional between the Neoclassical and Gothic Revival types of Classic Greek Revival genres. Decoration is very restrained, but expressions of style are particularly evident in the excellent craftsmanship. It is contemporaneous and shares many features with the Methodist Church in Irondale 8 miles to the east, and to St. Paul Episcopal Church in Ironton 20 miles to the southeast.

The church is 60' x 36'. The dominant decorative feature are the lancet Gothic windows, six in the nave, and four in the narthex, which rise almost the full height of the upper story. The entry way is contained within a lancet arch matching those of the windows. Access to the interior was originally gained by separate entrances for each story, but later this was remodeled into a single main entry. P.O. 1819-date.

Back to Top

Former Grocery Store

This building is one of half-a-dozen commercial building constructed between 1910 and1920, after the 1909 fire. They are all similar in their concrete block with cast iron post-and-lintel facades, plate glass windows, and decorative stamp metal cornices. The concrete blocks were made with the town's own block-forming machine. All these buildings, except for the Community center, are similar in their long, narrow, rectangular plans; highly styled, glass-front facades; plain blank side walls with minimal window treatment; and undecorated sidewall tops finished in coping tiles. P.O. 1819-date.

Back to Top

Stewart McSpaden's Golden Rule Store

This building is one of half-a-dozen commercial building constructed between 1910 and1920, after the 1909 fire. They are all similar in their concrete block with cast iron post-and-lintel facades, plate glass windows, and decorative stamp metal cornices. The concrete blocks were made with the town's own block-forming machine. Part of the downtown business district burned in the major fire in 1909, and McSpaden's Golden Rule Store was one of the buildings constructed following the fire.

McSpaden's has an unusually elaborate facade for this genre of buildings in Caledonia, with its full two story height, and windows on both first and second floors. The detail of the window and door treatment fit within Caledonia's Classic Revival entry styles. The concrete block of the walls, the alternating smooth and rock-faced blocks to quoin the front corners, the stamped metal inside and out, and the flute, block, and bulls-eye woodwork of this store all match similar elements in the Methodist Church just adjacent across Alexander Street, a striking attempt to relate neighboring buildings of totally different design and function. Unfortunately, the painting of the store, and the stuccoing of the church have almost totally obscured these relationships to the casual observer. P.O. 1819-date.

Back to Top

Masonic Lodge

Tyro Lodge #12 AF and AM.

This brick building was constructed in 1919 to replace the earlier lodge building on the banks of Goose Creek, which burned that same year. This building is typical of many of the brick store-front Masonic lodges built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the Midwest. The building is very simply decorated, with a Masonic diamond-shaped window between the upstairs front windows. The downstairs was originally utilized as a store, with the upstairs being the lodge hall. P.O. 1819- date.

Back to Top

Ramsey House

This house was built sometime before 1860, apparently initially designed to be an inn and tavern. It is unusual among the other examples of this style in Caledonia, in being developed to a full three stories in height. A two-story portico, common to other examples of this style in Washington County, dominates the facade, with a simple vernacular Eastlake porch-on-porch over the main door. The house has no exterior fireplace chimneys. The three-bay facade has relatively little ornamentation, except for the machine-turned porch posts, and the recently added shutters. P.O. 1819- date.

Back to Top

Ruggles-Evans-Dent House

This house, built in 1850, is 'full Georgian' in plan, with elements typical of the Missouri vernacular Greek Revival style houses of the period. The house is said to have been built by Elijah Starr Ruggles, a second generation settler and slave owner. Ruggles was a merchant in town, son of Martin Ruggles, one of three partners who established the Springfield Lead Furnace near Caledonia in 1823. Ruggles sold the house in 1853 to James S. Evans, another slave owner; in 1911 the house was sold by the Evans family to the banker W. J. Dent, a relative of Julia Dent Grant (U. S. Grant's wife).

The portico is Greek Revival, and the windows and interior woodwork also share Classic Greek Revival characteristics. The end walls of the main block house is a typical sober gable of the Georgian-plan, detached country house, extremely conservative in its plain paired chimneys. The foundations are limestone, with the brick walls above of local manufacture and soft brownish-red in color. The four brick fireplace chimneys of the main block pierce the roof behind the cornice; the chimneys are high-shouldered in the Virginia-Carolina vernacular style.. The facade is symmetrical, simple, and classically proportioned. Windows lugsills and lintels are smooth-dressed limestone, setting the stage for a more dramatic entryway. It seems to be nearly the twin of the Jane Alexander Thompson House at 307 Main Street, built in 1848. P.O. 1819- date.

Back to Top

General Store

This building is another one of half-a-dozen commercial building constructed between 1910 and 1920, after the 1909 fire. They are all similar in their concrete block with cast iron post-and-lintel facades, plate glass windows, and decorative stamp metal cornices. The concrete blocks were made with the town's own block-forming machine. All these buildings, except for the Community center, are similar in their long, narrow, rectangular plans; highly styled, glass-front facades; plain blank side walls with minimal window treatment; and undecorated sidewall tops finished in coping tiles. P.O. 1819- date.

Back to Top

Carr House

The Ferson Carr House is one of five similar houses in Caledonia on Main, College, and Henry Streets, built between 1856 and 1878, all of the same "I" house plan, that is, with Southern transverse axis, central-passage, single pile, two-story plan, with rear ells, similar door placement, frame construction, siding, and window treatment. Each has a central entryway with carpenter-Doric bays framing recessed doors with transoms and sidelights. Ferson Carr has boxed cornices, and S-curve brackets supporting its facade cornice, the only such bracketing in Caledonia. The porch is a latter modification of the original porch built in 1856. P.O. 1819-date.

Back to Top

United Methodist Church

The original Methodist church was built in 1852, but burned in the great fire of 1909. Construction on the 'new' church was begun in 1909, and finished in 1911. The present church is of a genre of Methodist church designs built early in the 20th century in several cities across the country. While the Caledonia church appears to be of an L-plan variety, with the interior of the L opening to the street corner (i.e. the southeast corner of Main and Alexander), the building was actually constructed as a T-plan, of two rectangular blocks, a nave block 33' x 50', and a narthex-social hall block 20' x 30'. The L-shaped effect is achieved by the placing of the square-thick-set entry-belfry tower in the angle of the nave-narthex opening to the street corner. Architectural historians have termed this a sort of 'rustic, eclectic Richardson-Romanesque', particularly as reflected in the entry tower, and the coarse, rock-faced gray concrete blocks. Alternate course of gray and white blocks at every corner provide the appearance of quoining. The concrete-block construction proved unsatisfactory because of the severe condensation on the inside of the walls, so subsequently they were covered with a thick coat of stucco. P.O. 1819-date.

Back to Top

Lucas-Wilcox House

This frame house was built in the 1840s, one of three oldest houses in town. With massive stone cellar foundations, it has remained as the only surviving gable-entry dwelling in Caledonia. The house was built on massive course rubble limestone foundations, which has the support for a fireplace, although there is no longer any evidence that a fireplace existed upstairs. The decorations of this vernacular Greek Revival house are its cornice and its entryway. A typical Victorian style porch has been added, similar to that of the Methodist Church parsonage, with suspended spindle frieze. P.O. 1819-date.

Back to Top

Jane Alexander Thompson House

Jane Thompson was the second major Caledonia merchant and slave owner in the 1850s. She was born in Virginia in 1807, came to Caledonia in 1826, and remained unmarried through her life, until she died in 1854, and was involved in numerous land speculation transactions around Caledonia. The interior of this house is very similar to that of the Ruggles house. On the exterior, the Ruggles and Thompson houses appear more different than they actually are. The facade of Thompson has six bays, three on the south wing, two on the north wing, plus one over the entry way. The unusual arrangement of windows and doors on the first floor resulted from Jane Thompson building her house to serve as a combination store and residence. Unlike the plainer gable of the Georgian-plan of the Ruggles house, however, the Thompson's end walls have parapeted gables and partially exposed chimneys; they are townhouse walls, much more like similar houses of St. Louis and Ste. Genevieve of this period. P.O. 1819- date.

Back to Top

William Goforth Eversole House

William Goforth Eversole was a nephew of Jacob Eversole, one of the three partners who established the Springfield Lead Furnace near Caledonia in 1823. William was a major mill entrepreneur and slave holder, and built this house in the 1850s. It is a double-pile, two and a half story frame structure, dominated by two great brick chimneys on the south wall. The north wall chimneys have been removed. The high-shoulder configuration is characteristic of Georgian-plan buildings in Virginia and Carolina, and utilized in many other buildings in Caledonia. Several features of the facade, such as the entryway, and the windows treatment, are shared between the Ruggles, Thompson, and Eversole houses. Behind the house is a large, well-maintained frame house which was utilized in pre-Civil War periods as the slave quarters. P.O. 1819- date.

Back to Top