Charles L. Young House - 512 McDonough Street

The house at 512 McDonough Street is a well-preserved, circa 1889, clapboard-sided, gable-front-and-wing house with elements of the Queen Anne style. The corner property is located in the earlier settlement area of the St. Pat’s Neighborhood, and this house was the first to be built on this block according to city directories and available maps.

Charles L. Young is the first documented resident of the home, according to the 1889 Joliet City Directory. Mr. Young worked for the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad. For this reason, it is rumored that the house may have been built by the railroad company as a Section House for its employees. The house changed hands numerous times between the late 1890s and 1960. In 1960, Zygmunt E. & Ruth Literski purchased the property, and the property has been in continuous family ownership since this time (almost 60 years). The property passed from Zygmunt and Ruth to their daughter Susan (Literski) Havelka and her husband Charles in the 1990s. The Havelka’s have been working on restoring the house for over two decades.