Alton Area Landmarks Association

The Alton Area Landmarks Association, Inc. was founded in 1970 during an effort to save the old GM&O Railroad Station from demolition. Support was widespread, but the building was razed for the Willliam L. Beatty Federal Building on Belle Street.

AALA is dedicated to educating, promoting, and saving the architectural heritage of the Alton area. Alton Area Landmarks Association sponsors the annual Fall Historic House Tour.

General membership meetings are held periodically throughout the year. These meetings are free and open to the public. There is a brief business meeting, refreshments, and a guest speaker. Watch here and the monthly newsletter for upcoming events.

Mission Statement

AALA is dedicated to educating, promoting and preserving the architectural heritage of the Alton area. We accomplish this by hosting educational tours and lectures and by advocating to elected officials and the general public.

Three Threats to Alton’s Historic Districts

Alton has the distinction of having three registered national historic districts, Christian Hill, Middletown and Upper Alton. These add character to our city and remind residents and visitors alike about our rich and diverse history. But these historic districts are under attack by three recent trends that erode their integrity and threaten the very character of Alton, the replacement of original wood windows with plastic or metal windows, the use of plastic siding, and the demolition of historic homes to make way for modern structures.

Historic structures can be a challenge. They can be expensive to maintain, if regular maintenance has been deferred. But as stewards of these historic districts, we must maintain them appropriately. If we do not, Alton’s character and history will be irrevocably lost.

The first threat is modern replacement windows. Alton’s historic homes were built with wood-framed windows. Why keep them? Windows are the EYES of a building. And like human eyes, windows convey the age and personality of a place. The National Trust for Historic Preservation gives a multitude of reasons why repair and maintenance of windows is the best choice, economically and practically. Most importantly, taking away original windows, and insensitive replacement effectively ruins the historic integrity, not only of your home or building, but this also permanently alters and makes a community or historic district NOT recognizable as historic. This in effect also damages the worth of the home/building and lowers the worth of the property and the neighborhood. We urge old house owners to attend one of the available workshops on how to maintain their windows.

The second threat is from artificial siding. Alton’s historic homes were built with bricks or wood siding. Why use wood siding and not plastic? Plastic looks like plastic. We all recognize that, as a material, plastic is not only cheap/inexpensive, but it looks low-quality and inappropriate on a historic house. While the argument for plastic is that it requires “no maintenance,” what they are not telling you is that these products indeed cannot BE maintained. Vinyl and aluminum can only be replaced. The marketing will not tell you that the common replacement windows will start to break down and need to be replaced in as little as two years. Vinyl siding will fade, will be damaged by wear or by weather and it cannot be painted or repaired, only replaced. Also, in the event of fire of course these materials are incredibly toxic as they are burning/melting.

The third threat to our historic districts is existential, the complete replacement of historic homes with modern ones. This threat can literally destroy the whole idea of a historic district. A good example is Kirkwood, Missouri. The North Taylor Historic District contains less than 200 homes, yet ten historic houses have been demolished so that developers could acquire the lots to build new houses. An 1850’s house is soon to be the eleventh. The Historic District is now over 5% new houses, and more demolitions may be on the way if Kirkwood cannot strengthen its preservation ordinance.

Historic districts are very desirable neighborhoods to live in. But when is a historic district (certified by the Department of the Interior), not a historic district? When 10% of the contributing historic homes are demolished? Or 20%? Or 30%? Don’t be fooled into thinking a new house designed to look like a 1890’s house is a good substitute. These historic districts are not New Town or Disneyland. No new house is a replacement for an authentic historic house. The truth is that people are buying genuine historic homes ostensibly to live in but then claiming the old structures cannot be feasibly renovated and must be torn down and replaced with something new.

This threat has come to Alton. A development company has bought a 1860’s house in Middletown and has recently applied for a demo permit from the Historical Commission. They want to build a counterfeit historic looking house on the lot. The Alton historic preservation ordinance is a little stronger than the Kirkwood ordinance, so with community pushback, the development company has withdrawn their request for now. However even if the developer’s demolition permit request was denied by the Historical Commission, they could appeal to the city council. If the city council denied the demo permit, the developer could take the issue to court. The threat is surely not over.

Once a historic structure is gone, it’s gone forever. These three threats are already invading Alton and could eventually destroy our historic districts completely, thereby destroying Alton’s reputation as a historic city and all the cultural and financial benefits that brings. We hope that by alerting you to these threats and the benefits of alternative solutions, you can help us slow the invasion and maintain Alton’s rich and original architectural heritage.

-Terry Sharp