Tiedemann House

This stately brown brick house with a two-story porch was built for Ernst J. Tiedemann in 1884. St. Louis architect Henry E. Peipers designed the structure and the ten-room house features a ballroom on the second floor. This may have been the first house in O'Fallon to feature a bathroom with indoor plumbing. The Tiedemann House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2019; the Italianate style home reflects the transition to the Queen Anne style.

Ernst Justus Tiedemann was born in Germany in 1831. His younger brother, Charles came to America first, in 1849, and became an apprentice to a wheelright in Belleville. Ernst emigrated to the U.S. in 1852 and also settled in Belleville where he became the county surveyor. The nearby town of O'Fallon began in 1854 as a stop on the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad; the depot was named O'Fallon Station. Ernst platted the town into lots along with Frederick A. Carpenter and Hugo O. Sheerbarth. Town lots were sold at public auction on May 13, 1854.

Ernst traveled to Nebraska and Colorado for several years while working as a surveyor. In 1862, Ernst married Maria Anna Bauman in Nebraska; she also was a German native and emigrated to the U.S. in 1850 when she was seven years old. Ernst returned to O'Fallon in 1865 where he operated a general mercantile store. The store was the largest in the area and carried hardware, groceries, dry goods, and glassware. His children eventually helped in the store, including sons Charles F., Henry E., and Louis.

In 1874, O'Fallon was incorporated as a village. Both Ernst and his brother Charles (owner and operator of a local flour mill in O'Fallon) served multiple times as President of the Village Board in the 1870s and 1880s. In 1876, Ernst was one of the founders of the local German Evangelical Church. The brick church building was on Cherry St., two blocks north of where Ernst would build his new home. In the 1890s, Ernst was one of a group of men who constructed a light, power, heat, and water plant in O'Fallon; the plant was later operated by O'Fallon Light Power and Water Company.

The house was constructed for Ernst and his large family in 1884 on three lots. Ernst and Maria had fifteen children, ten of whom lived to adulthood. Their eldest son, Charles F., married Maria J. Loesch in 1890 in Belleville. In 1900, Ernst was a 68-year-old merchant and a naturalized American citizen. He shared the house with wife Mary A. (56) and six of his children that still lived at home: Lena A. (24), Otto J. (20), Sophia J. (18), Fred J. (16), Martha J. (13), and Benjamin G. (12). Lena, Otta, and Fred worked in the family store; the two youngest children attended school. In 1906, the house was near the center of a large lot, with a one-story greenhouse wing with a glass roof on the east. There were one-story wooden porches on the front and rear of the mansion. To the west of the house was a hen house, water tower, and water mill. in a rear corner of the lot was a two-story wood frame stable with one-story side wings (since destroyed by fire). A one-story, round wood frame gazebo stood in the rear yard, behind the wing.

Ernst passed away in 1902. His children continued to run the family store until their mother died in 1916. One of the siblings, Benjamin, died in 1908; his brother, Friedrich (Fred), passed away in 1910. Charles F. bought out his siblings' interest but then sold the store; he died in 1917. Louis ran his own grocery store and then sold out to his brother, Henry E., who died in 1929.

In 1954, when O'Fallon celebrated its centennial, four of Ernst's children still resided in the family home at 218 W. Washington St.: Lena, Louis, Sophie, and Martha. Henry's son, Alfred, also still lived in O'Fallon in 1854 where he worked as assistant cashier at First National Bank. Lena died in 1958, followed by Louis in 1963, Martha in 1972, and Sophia in 1973.

Brown, Stephen. NRHP Nomination of Tiedemann House, O'Fallon, Illinois. National Register. Washington, DC. National Park Service, 2019.

City of O'Fallon. Landmark Designations - Photos & Descriptions, Historic Preservation Commission. Accessed November 13th, 2022. https://www.ofallon.org/historic-preservation-committee/pages/historical-landmark-designation-photos.

City of O'Fallon. 1854 O'Fallon Centennial Celebration 1954, Souvenir Program. O'Fallon, IL. City of O'Fallon, 1954.

FamilySearch. Family tree of Charles F. Tiedemann (1867-1917), Family Search. October 17th, 2021. Accessed November 14th, 2022. https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/KJKJ-G11.

U.S. Census Bureau. Household of Ernst J. Tiedemann in O'Fallon District 121, St. Clair County, IL, dwelling 276, family 284. Washington, DC. U.S. Government, 1900.