Saline County Poor House, Illinois: Session 1

About Saline County Poor House, Illinois

The Saline County Poor Farm is a historic poor farm located at 1600 Feazel Road in Harrisburg, Illinois. The farm was founded in 1863 in accordance with an 1839 state law providing for each county to establish a poor farm or almshouse. After using a cheaply made log building to house the poor for several years, a permanent brick residence was constructed on the farm in 1877. The poor farm was designed to provide shelter for the county's impoverished residents under the condition that they work on the farm if able. During the late 1800s, this was the most common means of providing social relief for the poor in Illinois; by 1903, only two of the state's 102 counties had not established a poor farm or almshouse. However, the county poor farms frequently suffered from substandard living conditions, and the Saline County farm was no exception. According to various state reports from the early 1900s, the buildings were not maintained properly, disease and bedbugs were rampant, official oversight was lacking, and inmates often refused to work.

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What you would be doing

Hands-on preservation of historic institutional brick building