The home at 1125 S. Delaware Ave., owned by Laura McCaskill and known as the Fairbanks House, was designated as a Springfield Historic Site by Springfield City Council, after nomination by the Landmarks Board in May.
From the application:
“The English Tudor home at 1125 S. Delaware was built for J.O. Fairbanks, son of Professor Jonathan Fairbanks who was a pioneer educator in Springfield. The home was completed in 1930 by T.J. Tolliver and designed by architect Wilmer N. Thompson. The hand-chiseled stone for the home and the porches and walls were collected from several other notable residences including that of Gov. John Phelps and Josiah Keet and the Old Clark homestead. Stone also came from the Cumberland Presbyterian Church on Olive and Jefferson. The carved mahogany fireplace originated from what was the Benjamin Massey home on Walnut Street.
The oak floors, mahogany stair railing, oak doors and hardware, 8-foot masonry living room fireplace and beams, are all original to the home. With the exception of three replacement windows, all the 40-plus windows are original to the home. There are several trees on the property that are 100+ years old including three large magnolias. There are many structural components that originated from older Springfield which make the home an important part of Springfield’s history. Of added interest is that it was recently discovered that the Fairbanks family in Springfield are direct descendants of Puritan settler Jonathan Fairbanks who constructed a house in Dedham, Massachusetts circa 1641, making it the oldest surviving timber-frame house in North America that has been verified by dendrochronology testing. It is on the National Register of Historic Places.”