Oak Hill Historic District

Historic Preservation Commission

(515) 576-4551

Between South 8th Street & South 12th Street

The Oak Hill District is a four-block district placed on the National Register of Historical Places. The district consists of 15 homes which reflect the changing architectural styles of the post-Civil War period, 1870-1910. The styles of homes in the district include French Second Empire, East Lake, Queen Anne, Craftsman, Jacobean Revival, and Prairie, a showcase of the architectural evolution of that period.

Among its residents were a U.S. senator, an inspector for the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, Iowa’s state printer, the director of the U.S. Mint, the president of U.S. Gypsum Company, the publisher of the local newspaper, and most of the city’s early bankers and entrepreneurs. These homes represented the prosperity and optimism which dominated in Fort Dodge during its golden era. Each family sought to outshine their neighbors in size, quality, and elegance of their home, reflecting on the local level the “conspicuous consumption” ethic of America’s “Gilded Age.”