Town Square Pavilion (121 North Illinois Avenue)

(Click the photo above for an audio tour)

Daniel Harmon Brush, the founder of Carbondale, constructed the original freight and passenger depot at this location in 1854, using hand-hewn beams most likely produced by his own mill located south of present-day Mill Street. Evidence of the original mortise and tenon joints can still be seen on the original timbers. Brush completed the building in time to serve as the welcome center for the arrival of the first train to Carbondale on the 4th of July, 1854. Approximately 2,500 people participated in the celebration and ate in shifts in the building. On April 23, 1861, eleven days after Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, Daniel Brush called a public meeting on this town square. Brush delivered a patriotic speech in support of the Union. Two days later, Brush stood atop his building on the southwest corner of Illinois Avenue and Main Street, waved the American flag, and dared Southern sympathizers to take it down. Brush’s two speeches during the opening days of the Civil War affirmed the region’s loyalty to the Union at a time when some in the area advocated secession or support of the South. Around 1900, brush's original freight building was moved to its present location from a point 60 feet east and 100 feet south. The structure was disassembled and the original hand-hewn beams, rafters and related structural members were inventoried and reconstructed into the Town Square Pavilion in 1992. In 1994, the Pavilion became the City’s third historic landmark to be listed on the Carbondale Register of Historic Places. *For more information on the Historic Town Square, see “A Walking Tour of the Historic Town Square*