Conrad Bornman House (Labor & Industry Museum)

The little brick building on the corner of North Church St. and East B St. in Belleville began as the Conrad Bornman House. The oldest part of the house dates to around 1837, when Bornman bought the lot in the young town and built a 2.5-room house with a basement. Bornman sold the house in 1840 to a shoemaker, Charles Born, who had recently emigrated from Germany. The house was added onto in 1870 and 1913 and was almost demolished before the building was saved by local efforts in the 1990s. It now holds the Labor & Industry Museum, open on Saturdays or by appointment.

Conrad Bornman (1799-1878) was born in 1799 in Germany. He and Jacob Maurer were thought to be the first German-Americans to settle in St. Clair County, Illinois, arriving around 1820; both men worked as Blacksmiths. In 1827, Bornman married Elizabeth Miller in St. Clair County. Bornman took part in a meeting of Whig political party leaders in St. Clair County in the summer of 1839, held in Belleville at the county courthouse. He and four other men were appointed to draft a number of resolutions to be introduced at the upcoming state Whig Convention in Springfield. The list included their support for Henry Clay of Kentucky for U.S. president and their hopes that President Martin Van Buren would not be re-elected.

Soon after arriving in Belleville, Conrad Bornman became a brickmaker and bricklayer; he may have constructed this brick house on the Church St. corner to rent out or sell to others. The house was constructed in a style typical of the era in Germany, with side gables, a cornice of brickwork across the front, and evenly spaced windows. The original wooden lintels and flooring have been preserved; interior lintels are of log with the bark intact. The cellar is accessed through a trap door.

Charles Born, who had recently arrived from Germany, purchased the house from Bornman in 1840, about three years after Bornman purchased the lot. Born was not listed in the 1840 census of heads of households in St. Clair County. Born was a shoemaker or cobbler; typically, a shopper would pick out a style of shoe displayed in the cobbler shop and the shoemaker would make them a pair to fit; the shoemaker also repaired leather footwear. There were twelve shoemakers in Belleville by 1850. A history of Belleville quoted the following prices from 1844 for cow hide leather footwear: calf skin brogans for $1.25 to $1.62; boy's shoes $.75 to $1.37; and women's shoes $.87 to $1.12!

Born's shoe shop was listed in a Belleville 1860 directory in the first block of N. High St. Bornman changed careers and - along with his sons William F. and John Charles - opened a machine shop. They expanded the original house twice to accommodate the shop. The Borns patented a number of grinders, steam pumps, and polishing lathes. In 1885, the Borns built a new machine shop ("John C. Born Machine Shop") at the west edge of their lot, at 222 E. B St.; the machine shop is no longer standing. Charles Born died in 1896. The Born machine shop was one of five in Belleville in 1900. By 1907, a series of brick and wooden wings connected the rear (west) of the house to the machine shop complex ("J.C. Born & Bro."). In 1906, Helena Born, the widow of Charles, lived in the house; William F. resided there, too. By 1908, the house was occupied by Helena; she died in 1910.

In 1913, the Born family sold the Church St. building to cigar manufacturer Charles Beck (1867-1933). Beck expanded the building once again to hold his tobacco manufactory and shop, previously located (by 1901) at 208-210 W. Main St. Beck created a stripping machine, humidor, and oven to use in making cigars, pipe tobacco, and chewing tobacco. Beck's son, Sonny, operated the cigarmaking shop in the building until 1957.

The next owner, Everett E. Sasko, operated a T.V. repair shop here. New owners in 1995 planned to demolish the building for a parking lot, but after public outcry, an adaptive use was found as a Belleville visitors center and museum. Fundraising and organization took a few years, but the renovated building was dedicated in December 2000 and opened in August 2002. The Labor & Industry Museum features permanent exhibits on the struggles of working men and women; Belleville's cast iron stove-making industry; and historical objects from the local brewing, brickmaking, and glass industries. Their library contains thousands of historic local images and patents for designs by Belleville folks since 1850. Some have claimed to hear the ghost of a little girl singing upstairs or indoors on the steps.

Ancestry.com. Bornman-Public Member Photos & Scanned Documents, Ancestry.com. Accessed November 17th, 2022. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/1093/?name=_Bornman.

Belleville, Judy. Museum Building History, Labor & Industry Museum. Accessed November 20th, 2022. http://www.laborandindustrymuseum.org/buildinghistory.shtml.

Carpenter, Hans A. The Haunted History of the Labor & Industry Museum, Facebook: Labor & Industry Museum Belleville Illinois. November 8th, 2016. Accessed November 20th, 2022. https://www.facebook.com/laborandindustrymuseum/posts/the-haunted-history-of-thelabor-industry-museumby-hans-a-carpenterin-1837-brick-/1225614857517233/.

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Messenger, John. "Whig County Convention." Sangamo Journal (Springfield) August 9th, 1839. 2-2.

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Torp, K. 1840 St. Clair County Census, Genealogy Trails. Accessed November 18th, 2022. www.genealogytrails.com/ill/stclair/1840census.html.

West, Edward William. History of St. Clair County, Illinois - 1876, St. Clair County Genealogical Society. January 1st, 2018. Accessed November 17th, 2022. https://stclair-ilgs.org/1876-history/.