The Oughton House of Dwight

Dwight, Illinois sits about seventy-five miles southwest of Chicago on old Route Sixty-Six, and its most striking address is the John R. Oughton House, a Romanesque Revival mansion built in the eighteen nineties. Oughton made his fortune as a seed-corn merchant and poured it into this turreted limestone pile, which anchored a town already known as the home of the Keeley Institute, a pioneering alcohol and drug treatment center that drew wealthy patients from across the country in the eighteen eighties and nineties.

The Oughton house changed hands several times over the twentieth century and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in recognition of its architectural ambition in a small prairie town. Today Dwight's population hovers around four thousand, and the mansion remains one of the most ornate private homes along the old Mother Road corridor.