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Click on the link above to read about the origins and history of the Great Unveiling

History Unveiled:

Following is a series of articles about the restoration of the historic Jackson House, as printed in the Rock Island Argus.  Articles are in chronological order, with the most recent being on top.

824 20th Street Before and After

An a-PEEL-ing task: Unveiling uncovers motherlode of architectural history

By Diane Oestreich, press@qconline.com

More photos from this shoot

Photo: Gary Krambeck / staff Friends and neighbors in the Broadway Historic District help remove vinyl siding from the historic Smyth-Jackson House at 824 20th St., Rock Island, as part of the Great Unveiling April 19. They removed the siding together and discovered clapboard beneath. The home is owned by David Cordes and Bryan Pattschull.

More photos from this shoot

Photo: Gary Krambeck / staff Friends and neighbors volunteer to help unveil the historic Jackson House at 824 20th St. in Rock Island. They all work to pull vinyl siding off the outside of the home during the start of restoration work. The home is owned by Dave Cordes and Bryan Pattschull.

More photos from this shoot

Photo: Gary Krambeck / staff Paul Magnuson, a neighbor and volunteer, pulls a large piece of vinyl siding off the side of the historic Smyth-Jackson House at 824 20th St., Rock Island, during the Great Unveiling April 19. The event kicked off outdoor restoration to the home, owned by David Cordes and Bryan Pattschull.

Historic preservationist Diane Oestreich provides the second installment in a series about the unveiling and restoration of a historic Rock Island home. Watch for periodic updates Sundays in Home & Garden.

ZZZZZZZZIIIIIIPPPPPPP!

RRRRRRIIIIIIPPPPPPPPP!

And there goes another long strip of corrugated vinyl, peeled from the outside walls of the home at 824 20th St., Rock Island, during the Broadway Historic District Association's Great Unveiling April 19.

With more than 30 volunteers, including the YouthHope Job Squad from Christian Friendliness, it took less than four hours to remove all of the decade-old vinyl siding, which filled a Dumpster.

Some of the unveiling was routine. Even the nest of garter snakes wasn't a surprise. Snakes have become an unveiling tradition, since they seem to be attracted to the spaces between new vinyl and old clapboard. The nearly pristine clapboard beneath wasn't a surprise, either, as experienced unveilers have learned that modern siding often hides excellent original wood.

Neighbors who pulled nails left in the siding can attest that this wood, from virgin American forests, was as hard as the day it was milled.

In spots where the paint was peeling, the vintage wood color was still bright and fresh. Alas, most window sills were rotted and in need of replacement.

Happy surprises lay in the ghosts of what was once there.

Clearly defined outlines of bracketed columns that once supported porches provide a pattern for reproduction. The lack of these support ghosts near the front door -- they had been painted over in the past -- verifies that the three porches depicted on the 1888 drawing had been enlarged to a true wraparound sometime in the early 1900s. A schematic of that newer porch is shown on Sanborn fire insurance maps.

Strong outlines of once-ornate window hoods remain to form another pattern, while scars on the long-hidden window frames reveal the hinge locations for exterior shutters. And, in a real boon to restoration, the original brackets supporting the gable ends are still there.

These ghosts verify that the architectural detailing of the house was intact until the early 1950s when aluminum siding was applied.

Today's owners were amazed to find how accurately an historic 1888 drawing depicts the 4 1/4-inch width of the unveiled clapboard. That width is just about midway between the wide aluminum and the narrow vinyl added later.

The paint revealed -- pale beige with brown trim -- likely dates from about 1940. When this is scraped away carefully, another grayish, olive-green paint is revealed, which likely is the original color. Such colors based on nature were popularized in the 1840s and 1850s by Andrew Jackson Downing, who also sold plans for houses similar to this one.

While today's owners are studying their plans for exterior renovations -- more about this next time -- it's time to examine the history of the Smyth-Jackson House.

The beginnings

The home was built by Edwin H. Smyth, sometimes spelled Smythe but pronounced Smith, a native New Yorker. He arrived in Rock Island on Feb. 6, 1854, just two weeks before the railroad and the first train reached town and created a boom of prosperity. Although only 25 years old, within three months, he and John J. Knox had opened a men's clothing store in a small rented building.

Edwin and his younger brother, Herman, lived in a rooming house for a time. Herman worked in the clothing store in which he became a partner in 1856, although he took several months off to join the Pike's Peak Gold Rush.

Two years later, the store moved to a new and larger location on the southeast corner of what are 17th Street and 2nd Avenue today. By 1860, the store was offering merchant tailoring, providing made-to-measure menswear that attracted customers from as far as Chicago.

In 1861, Edwin bought out Mr. Knox, and the following year he bought out Herman. Edwin's timing was fortuitous.

When the Civil War prison camp opened on Arsenal Island in 1863, Rock Island prospered like never before, thanks to the new bridge over the slough. By close of the war, Edwin said his store was doing $50,000 in annual business.

Once established in Rock Island, Edwin had married Anna, also from New York, and they started a family. After the war, Edwin used his profits wisely, investing in real estate in the summer of 1867 by buying two acres between today's 19th and 20th streets and 8th and 9th avenues from landowner Joseph Conet. The following spring, he started building this house at the "south end of Madison Street," as 20th Street then was called, for his family, which included children Emma, Newton and Charlotte.

Then tragedy struck the Smyth family. In the autumn of 1869, a new infant daughter died at 2 months old, only six months after Edwin and Herman had journeyed back to New York to bury their mother. These two events may have precipitated the changes the Smyths would soon undertake.

Within a couple of years, Edwin sold off much of the two acres adjacent to his house to men who wanted to build their own homes in this developing area.

Then, on February 1, 1873, he announced that he had sold his Pioneer Clothing Company, as it was then called, to longtime employees Charles Dodge and Rufus Walker. That April, Anna's poor health was the reason given for the Smyth family's move to Santa Rosa, Calif., and they sold this Madison Street house to attorney William Jackson.

Mrs. Smyth recovered in California, and even outlived her husband, residing with her two unwed daughters. Son Newton became a civil engineer and gained fame for laying out the unique hexagonal street grid system of Cotati, Calif.

The story of William Jackson, whose family would live here for the next 50 years, will be told in a later chapter of the Smyth-Jackson home history.

History unveiled: What lurks beneath 140-year-old home’s vinyl siding?

By Diane Oestreich, correspondent@qconline.com

More photos from this shoot

Photo: Gary Krambeck Home owners Dave Cordes at left and Bryan Pattschull stand in the front yard of the home they will be renovating at 824 20th St., Rock Island.

-- Today, historic preservationist Diane Oestreich begins a series of stories about the unveiling and restoration of a historic home at 824 20th St., Rock Island. Watch for periodic updates Sundays in Home & Garden.

What better way to celebrate a 140th birthday than with a complete face lift and makeover?

That's what new owner David Cordes intends to accomplish for his once-grand mansion at 824 20th St., Rock Island, beginning Saturday, April 19, with a "Great Unveiling."

Known as the William Jackson House, the home was built in 1868 at a time when 20th Street was still called Madison Street. It is believed to be the second-oldest frame house still standing in Rock Island.

Despite its prominent location and large lot on a well-traveled street in the heart of the Broadway Historic District, the home seldom warrants a second glance. Its exterior has been so "remuddled" (a mixed-up form of remodeling) over the years that its historic Italianate features are barely recognizable. Some people manage to decipher the vintage roots, but they still puzzle over the changes.

Mr. Cordes, an experienced restorer, has searched for historic photos to guide his restoration. He found just a single image. Less than two inches high, it is an artist's line drawing from a book about Rock Island's history, businesses and residents, published in 1888, when the house already was 20 years old. An enlarged version of this photo accompanies this story, but even in miniature, the one-time appearance is breathtaking.

Comparing the contemporary photograph with the old drawing provides a remarkable contrast. Major architectural detailing disappeared. While today's house looks like an assemblage of shoeboxes covered in plain vinyl siding, the historic home displayed a wealth of ornate details, most of them removed over the years.

The greatest loss was the tall, bracketed tower. The base remains today as a protrusion at the front, but it is truncated and flat, missing the original Mansard-roofed tower. Intricately detailed, with each roof panel displaying a band of diamond-patterned shingles or slate, it was crowned by a tiny square balcony. Steep gables with brackets beneath intersected the tower roof above Gothic arched windows covered by similarly pointed shutters. Ornate fretwork-framed porches -- three of them at the front, connected by narrow walkways -- also were a casualty of remuddling.

Yet beneath the gabled main roof, the historic house remains recognizable. Amazingly, the original long, narrow windows have not been replaced, although the hoods projecting above some of them were removed when the siding was added. The shutters that protected the windows are long gone as well.

In a final blow, the original siding was covered, first in the 1950s with aluminum ,and 40 years later with gray vinyl. Beneath it all, the original clapboard survives.

But times are changing, right now, for this historic home. Exterior restoration will begin at 8 a.m. Saturday, April 19, when volunteers will descend on the home with ladders, pry bars and willing hands -- gloved, of course -- for the Broadway Historic District's Great Unveiling. The Broadway board of directors will provide a mechanical lift as well as lunch for volunteers -- and a "Renovation in Progress" sign, too.

The Great Unveiling -- removing nonhistoric siding from historic homes -- has been an annual undertaking in the Broadway neighborhood for nearly 20 years. First organized and named by Karen Williams and Paul Fessler, it has resulted in drastically changed appearances for dozens of Broadway homes over the years. Other communities across the state and nation have used Broadway's unveiling name for their own siding-removal projects.

As the first pieces of siding come off, there is a sense of drama and anticipation. What lies beneath it? In what condition? Are there traces of original paint colors? All these questions will be answered in time for this grand old lady's 140th-birthday party.

While the one-day unveiling creates an instant change, it is up to the homeowner to complete the work. Unveiling typically initiates months of homeowner effort, especially for do-it-yourselfers. In many cases, the amount of repair needed is not clear until the siding is removed. At a minimum, some repair of the historic siding and trim will be needed, with painting as the last step.

In this house, Mr. Cordes intends to rebuild the missing tower and more.

After the 20th Street unveiling is finished Saturday, the volunteers, tools and lift will move to another Broadway home at 820 22nd St. for a second unveiling that will remove 1950s shingles. This home was built circa 1903 for Louis Mosenfelder.

A bit of prior exploration has shown that the second story of this Dutch Colonial home is covered in wood shingles, while the lower portion is clapboard. This home, too, is missing its front porch.

Not to be outdone, the Keystone Neighborhood Association is unveiling one of its homes, at 4509 9th Ave., the following Saturday, April 26, beginning at 9 a.m.

All are welcome to watch the progress as Mr. Jackson's former home at 824 20th St. is restored to historic grandeur, both inside and out.

Coming up: In our next report, we'll find out what's hiding under the vinyl and learn more about the owner's plans. Later, we'll report on the families who built the home and who lived there through the years.