Workingmen's Houses, Nicholas Thornton House, 365 Southern Avenue, Dubuque, Dubuque County, IA

Significance: Sited immediately next to a main artery into Dubuque and configured with its stacked front porch and stone lower level, this building has the appearance of an early roadhouse, as suggested by local lore. However, no archival information has been located to verify this. The building does not appear as a boarding house, hotel or saloon in any of Dubuque's early city directories, and its owners are alternately listed as miners or laborers. Although its beginnings are obscure, this house is significant as one of the earliest such structures built along Southern Avenue in the 19th Century. It is exceeded in age along this street by only one other house in the study area: the John H. Kelly House [HABS No. IA-159-W]. This structure is a distinctive and enigmatic remnant of early Dubuque.
Survey number: HABS IA-159-AD
Building/structure dates: 1856 Initial Construction