Scott-Vrooman House

About this property

The Scott–Vrooman House is a historic home in Bloomington, Illinois. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. It was the site of speeches from Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas. The house was built in 1869 by Eli Barber. Due to his wife's death, he never lived in the home. He sold the completed home to Matthew T. and Julia Green Scott who moved in sometime in 1872. They had two daughters: Letitia and Julia Scott Vrooman who later married Carl Schurz Vrooman. Matthew died in 1891. In 1900, Julia Green Scott worked with architect Arthur Pillsbury to design an addition for the home which included the parlor, foyer, north facing porch and stained-glass windows. The house was also used as a hospital during the Flu Pandemic of 1918-1919. Julia Green Scott died in 1923. Her daughter Julia Scott Vrooman continued to live in the home with her husband Carl. During World War II, they sectioned off the third floor of the house as apartments for soldiers and their families. After Julia Scott Vrooman's death, most of the contents of the home were sold at public auction and donated. The historic home then had two subsequent owners who used it as their private residence until it was purchased in 1995 and turned into a bed and breakfast. Matthew T. Scott was a significant local businessman and developer who helped found the town of Chenoa, Illinois in 1855. His family had purchased large amounts of land in both Ohio and Illinois in the 1830s, including in Chenoa, IL. This land was particularly valuable because two railroads, the Chicago and Alton and the Toledo, Peoria and Warsaw, intersected there. Matthew Scott helped found the town of Chenoa in 1855 as an agricultural and commercial center for his business activities. He soon began buying thousands of acres of land and eventually accumulated over 45,000 acres of land in Illinois, Iowa, and Tennessee. He used funds from the sale of land to develop the best of his land holdings: 5,000 acres of land in northern McLean County and southern Livingston County. This land was prairie and very fertile and favorable to growing corn. In 1867, Matthew T Scott founded the McLean County Coal Company with Adlai E. Stevenson I, who married Julia Green Scott's sister Letitia. McLean County Coal Company was the most successful coal mine in McLean County, and was later run by Julia Green Scott after Matthew's death. Though Matthew and Julia lived in Chenoa at the beginning of their marriage, they moved to Springfield, Illinois in 1870 before settling in Bloomington in 1872. After Matthew's death in 1891, Julia became a prominent businesswoman and community leader; her accomplishments included serving as president of the McLean County Coal Company. The couple's daughter, Julia Scott Vrooman, married Carl Schurz Vrooman, who was Assistant Secretary of Agriculture under President Woodrow Wilson.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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