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Harrison Lester Rohrkaste, known as Harris, with the home's pet squirrel. 

The Rohrkaste House at 222 Monroe St. in Edwardsville. 

Elaborate gardens during the Rohrkaste's time in the house at 222 Monroe St., Edwardsville. 

Editor’s Note: In recognition of National Historic Preservation Month, local historian Cindy Reinhardt tells the stories behind some of Edwardsville’s historic buildings in a series of eight articles in the month of May.

The house at 222 Monroe St., Edwardsville was built as an investment property in 1893. It was a three-room frame house built for William Walker by contractor Joel Waters and Sons at a cost of $450. Walker paid $250 to John Crocker for the lot the previous year.

Walker died the same year the house was built so it was sold to Anna Margaret Lautner who in 1904 sold it to her mother, Mary Krouse. Neither of these women ever lived in the house. It was simply an income property. They both lived on nearby farms.

The house was not owner occupied until it was purchased by Louis and Emma Miller in 1918. Louis worked for A. A. Ammann, the florist. When Ammann sold his greenhouses, Louis stayed on with the new owner, Home Nursery. The Millers moved to a larger home on Columbia Avenue in 1925.

The Millers sold the house to neighbors, Edward and Katherine (Appel) Rohrkaste who had lived in the Crocker Gardens neighborhood for many years. Katherine’s mother, Julia Appel, as well as relatives from Edward’s mother’s family, the Berlemanns, lived on Monroe Street when the Rohrkastes were raising their family of six children around the corner at 214 Garden St.

One of Edward and Katherine’s sons, Harris, married in 1925 and three years later purchased the house at 222 Monroe St. from his parents. For the first time, the house would have an owner/resident that not only decided to stay, but who made many improvements to what was originally a simple three-room house.

Harrison Lester Rohrkaste, known as Harris, was born in Edwardsville in 1904 and raised with his five siblings on Garden Street. His father, Edward, was a tinner and owned a sheet metal shop. In 1934, Harris, already an experienced tinner, went to work for Shell Oil Company as an asbestos worker. In less than a year he was promoted to tinner and by 1940 was a tinner foreman. He worked his way up to craft supervisor, tools and equipment, in the engineering department. In 1963 he retired from Shell after 28 years.

From a comparison of property assessments over the years, it appears that Harris and Florence gradually enlarged the house beyond the original three-room building. Whether Harris did the work himself or not is not known, but he was capable of doing the work. His hobby was woodworking and by all accounts he was very talented. He installed beautifully patterned hardwood floors in the house and did other custom work.

When Harris married Florence (Irvin) Blurton in 1925, she was a divorcee with two children, but there is no record of the children living with the Rohrkastes. Florence was born in Kentucky in 1895, so was nearly ten years older than her husband. She was a homemaker who enjoyed games of bridge with friends.

Photographs of the Rohrkaste home, both inside and out, have survived. Exterior images show the elaborate gardens at the rear of the house with trellises, stone pathways, raised beds, statuary and benches that give it the appearance of a botanical garden. Also impressive are photographs of the interior taken in the early 1950s that show the furnishings in the house including some of the paintings Harris collected. Some of these were quite large for the house, including one that measured 6 feet 8 inches tall. 

Former neighbors remember Harris and Florence well, and, in particular, a humorous story that took place in the house. The Rohrkastes had a pet squirrel that would come into the house to be hand-fed. All was well until Florence’s large Persian cat decided to be territorial one day and took off after the squirrel. The squirrel ran up Harris’s leg across his body and up to his bald head followed directly by the cat. Needless to say, there was some scarring involved and the squirrel was never welcomed into the house again. There are photographs of the squirrel being fed and photographs of the cat, but not together.

Florence passed away in 1973 and Harris in 1985, both at home. The Rohrkaste family owned this home for 60 years and were good stewards. Today it continues to be well cared for, preserving the story of some of Edwardsville’s smaller houses.

Sources for this article include materials from the Madison County Archival Library, articles from past issues of the Edwardsville Intelligencer, the Recorder of Deeds Office and current and past residents of the house. If you have questions about this article, contact Cindy Reinhardt at cynreinhardt@yahoo.com or 618-656-1294.