Kiser Mansion

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.

From the record

“(Provide at least one paragraph for each area of significance.) documents relating to the property including transfers of ownership and wills associated with the site. The abstract three siblings; each sibling received one quarter of the property.”
Narrative Statement of Significance, National Register nomination for Kiser Mansion. Machine-read text.

one of 27 National Register listings in Champaign County · listed in 2011 · category: Building.

Sources: the nomination case file at the National Archives · the full case file on this site · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 3 buildingss, 2 structuress, 1 site as contributing to the listing.
Address. 149 E. Main St, Saint Paris, 43072
When was it listed? 2011-02-04
Category. building
Township. Johnson township
Architectural style. Neoclassical architecture
National Register reference number. 10001211 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

3 since 2002

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 3 fires within 5 miles of Kiser Mansion between 2002 and 2002, burning about 25 acres in total. None started naturally. 1 was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Debris and open burning	1
Recreation and ceremony	1
Arson/incendiarism	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
12 September 2002	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Ohio State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
11 July 2002	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Ohio State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
8 March 2002	Debris and open burning	25 acres	Ohio State Fire Marshal's Office	not named

Every fire recorded in Champaign County

Specimens collected near this property

12 of 992 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 992 specimens collected within 10 miles of Kiser Mansion between 1842 and 1975: 789 Animalia, 162 Plantae, 35 Fungi, 4 Protozoa, 1 Unrecorded, 1 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. R. Gaufin, A. R. Gaufin, H. H. Ross, A. T. Hotchkiss and others. Each is a physical object with a catalogue number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be concluded from a species being absent.

Species	Year	Collected by	Where, as recorded
Dryopteris × boottii (Tuck.) Underw.	1874	Beardslee, H.C.	Cedar Swamp
Frullania riparia Hampe ex Lehm.	1877	J. E. Biddlecome
Radula obconica Sull.	1877	J. E. Biddlecome
Pylaisiadelpha tenuirostris (Bruch & Schimp. ex Sull.) W.R.Buck	1842	W. S. Sullivant	Cedar Swamps, 6 mi S of Urbana
Ctenidium malacodes Mitt.	1876	H. J. Biddlecome	Cedar Swamp
Ctenidium molluscum (Hedw.) Mitt.	1876	E. J. Spence	10.5 miles north of Springfield
Geocalyx graveolens (Schrad.) Nees	1876	not recorded	Cedar Swamp, near Urbana
Thuidium delicatulum (Hedw.) Schimp.	1876	H. J. Biddlecome	Cedar Swamp
Thuidium tamariscinum (Hedw.) Schimp.	1876	not recorded	Cedar Swamp
Trichocolea biddlecomiae Austin	1876	H. J. Biddlecome	Cedar Swamp
Amblystegium serpens (Hedw.) Schimp.	1877	not recorded	Cedar Swamp
Aneura pinguis (L.) Dumort.	1877	not recorded	Cedar Swamp, Urbana

All 992 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

From the nomination file

8,639 words on record

When this property was proposed for the National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is, and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain. It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s typewriter's.

Statement of significance

Property is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our Other: PHILANTHROPY Property is associated with the lives of persons significant in our past. of a type, period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack 1913 - 1945 Property has yielded, or is likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history. 1913, 1916, 1917, 1933, 1937 (Mark "x" in all the boxes that apply.) Kiser, John Sr., Thyrza Furrow, and John Jr. Owned by a religious institution or used for religious removed from its original location. C a birthplace or grave. D a cemetery. E a reconstructed building, object, or structure.
F a commemorative property. less than 50 years old or achieving significance within the past 50 years. and no longer occupied by the Kiser family. Criteria Considerations (explanation, if necessary) purposes. UNKNOWN history. COMMERCE ARCHITECTURE Criteria Considerations Significant Person individual distinction. Cultural Affiliation Property is: for National Register listing.) Significant Dates Areas of Significance Period of Significance Applicable National Register Criteria Architect/Builder Period of Significance (justification) Property embodies the distinctive characteristics County and State (Enter categories from instructions.) NPS Form 10-900 (Complete only if Criterion B is marked above.) Construction of the Kiser Mansion was completed in 1913.
Period of Significance ends in 1945 when the property was sold (Mark"x"inone or more boxes for the criteria qualifying the property United States Department of the Interior NPS Form 10-900 OMB No.

Read the complete 8,639-word case file.

The whole case file for this property - 8,639 words, 81 pages, reproduced complete.

Quoted from the National Register nomination for reference 10001211, 81 pages, held by the National Archives in Record Group 79. See the catalogue record.

Listed places nearby

1 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Photograph	Property	Distance	Listed
	Monitor House	0.5 miles	1974

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 10001211 in Record Group 79.
Champaign County	All 27 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.