Historic Preservation in Elgin has been making advances for over twenty-five years. Efforts were begun in the early 1980s as a grassroots movement by residents of an eastside neighborhood known as the Gifford Park Neighborhood. It was generally recognized that the effects of urban renewal of the 1960s had caused the erosion of downtown Elgin which was slowly making its way into the neighborhoods that surrounded it.

One of the methods that was determined to be effective in controlling this wearing away of downtown and its surrounding neighborhoods was to enable the City to identify and protect architecturally significant properties and neighborhoods through the creation of a local landmark ordinance which enabled individual structures to be designated as landmarks, and groups of structures to be designated as historic districts.

Historic Preservation is handled through the Planning and Neighborhood Services Department, a division of Community Development.

Download the This Place Matters form and take a photo of yourself in a place that matters to you!  See all the details in the Historic Preservation brochure.

If you are interested in local historic architecture then you may want to visit There Used To Be website. This website gives information about the book titled, "There Used To Be, A Look Back at Elgin’s Architectural Heritage" by author Steven Stroud.