History · Mount Morris

Mount Morris’s history is
mostly unwritten

The public archives hold no old photos of Mount Morris. The rest are in attics, shoeboxes and the historical society. Help start the collection.

0old images & papers
1historic places
12recent photos

The story

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Mt. Morris is home of the Illinois Freedom Bell, which is located in the town square. The area that is now the town square used to be the campus of one of Illinois' first institutes of higher learning, Mount Morris College. It was first a Methodist school and was later affiliated with the Church of the Brethren. The college closed due to hard economic times. The village's old Junior High School, while undergoing demolition, caught fire and burned forcing the school district to be merged with the Oregon School District in 1993. On February 12, 2004, the Rahn Elementary School was lost to fire. This resulted in the reorganization of the Oregon School District. The former Oregon city elementary and middle schools were merged into a single elementary school. The Mt. Morris Highschool has since been used as the middle school for the district. The town is also home of a very large group o…

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

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National Register of Historic Places

1 historic place in Mount Morris

1 place in Mount Morris is on the National Register of Historic Places, the country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.

#229
In Illinoisby listings · most towns there have none
1place listed1 building
0National Historic LandmarksNone here yet
1historic building protectedcounting each building in a district
1985first listedSamuel M. Hitt House

Where they are

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Buildings

When they were listed

The Register began in 1966.
National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places (05/22/2026) · styles from the National Archives catalog · photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place

Then & now

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Stories next door

nearby towns’ history

From Wikimedia Commons (12). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.

The porch light’s on

Where to, neighbor?

You’re in Mount Morris, ILOgle CountyView boundary

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Boundary source: https://tigerweb.geo.census.gov/arcgis/rest/services/TIGERweb/Places_CouSub_ConCity_SubMCD/MapServer/15 · 2025-01-01