Coleman, Lewis Shaw, House

About this property

The Lewis Shaw Coleman House is a historic house located at 227 East College Street in Aurora, Lawrence County, Missouri. The Lewis Shaw Coleman House, built in 1914, is the first private residence in Lawrence County to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was added to the register in 2016 for its architectural significance. The two-story, U-shaped American Craftsman style "airplane" bungalow sits on a limestone rubble foundation and the first floor walls are brick. It features exposed rafters in open eaves, low-pitched gable roofs with wide overhangs, decorative gable beams, and a prominent front porch with tapered stone columns. Also on the property are the contributing carriage house (c. 1927) and garage (c. 1955). Lewis Shaw Coleman and his wife Mary Kate Miller Coleman, children of two prominent Lawrence County families, built the Coleman House in 1914 on a corner lot overlooking Oak Park in Aurora. Established in 1870, Aurora saw sudden population growth due in large part to a mining boom in 1885 which spiked the population over 3,400 by 1890. Aurora's population peaked in 1900 at 6,191 a gain of more than 77%. As the mining industry faded by 1910, the population had fallen 33% to 4,148. However Aurora's business infrastructure remained strong with three banks, three flour mills, a shoe factory, a daily and weekly newspaper, and three lumber yards including the M.L. Coleman Lumber Company and the T.A. Miller Lumber Company. McCord Lafayette (M.L.) Coleman, born 1859, was one of the business giants of Aurora operating six lumber yards in the region as well as a hardware and implement business. He founded the largest milling company in the county and served as president of a local bank. He was successful in mining, owned a 120-acre apple orchard, and a large herd of Jersey milk cows. Lewis Shaw Coleman was his only son. Thomas Alexander (T.A.) Miller, born 1858, was another Aurora business giant. "In 1897, Mr. Miller returned to the lumber business in Aurora, to which he had moved in 1892. He expanded until he owned ten yards and several sawmills in Arkansas. He built a brick block in Greenfield while a resident there, the first brick building in Miller, a town which bears his name, the courthouse at Mount Vernon and the Franklin school here." In 1915, Mr. Miller would be elected mayor of Aurora. Mary Kate Miller was his eldest daughter. In 1914, Lewis Shaw Coleman and Mary Kate Miller, a high-profile couple in the community, were married with two young sons. They were well positioned to build a remarkable home when a prime building lot unexpectedly became available within three blocks of the center of Aurora. A grand Victorian home built in 1906 by Mrs. Jeanette Seburn on a prominent lot at the northwest corner of Park and College Streets had burned to the ground. Lewis Shaw Coleman purchased the newly vacant building site in 1913 planning "to have a fine residence erected."

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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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