A County Seat Built Around Money From Chicago
Monticello became the seat of Piatt County when the county was formed in 1841, and decades later a run of lavish homes along State Street earned the strip the nickname 'Millionaires Row,' now a historic district. That wealth also built Allerton Park, the estate Robert Allerton developed on farmland his father Samuel bought in the late 1800s, later gifted to the University of Illinois in 1946.
Older, Larger Homes Bring Different Foundation Questions
The substantial, older homes that gave Monticello its Millionaires Row reputation were typically built with more elaborate foundation systems than a standard postwar house, and settling in a home of that age and scale often involves more than one contributing factor. A Monticello foundation evaluation should account for a property's construction era before comparing it to newer Piatt County housing.