Built in 1884 for John R. Morgan, Eleanor Hughes Morgan, and their three children, this Queen Anne style home reflected the success of a family whose sawmill business, founded in Oshkosh in 1855 by John and his brother Richard as Morgan Brothers and Company, survived repeated financial hardships caused by fires, including the 1875 fire that devastated North Main Street after starting in the Morgan lumber yard, and went on to become one of Oshkosh’s leading sawmills into the 20th century. John hired local contractors Adam Bell and Edwin Cole to design and build the ornately decorated house, which included 1880s modern conveniences and cost approximately $12,000. After John and Eleanor Morgan died, their children briefly owned the house before it was sold outside the family. In the 1940s, Constance Misky bought it, operated her cosmetology school and salon on the first floor, and lived on the second floor. The Winnebago County Historical and Archaeological Society acquired the house from Misky through bequest and purchase in 1987, restored its original features, and furnished it to reflect how a family of the Morgans’ social status lived in late-nineteenth-century Oshkosh. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. The Irving-Church Historic District includes homes built between 1850 and 1939 within the boundaries of West Irving Avenue, Church Avenue, Franklin Street, and Elmwood Avenue, preserving styles such as Queen Anne, Greek Revival, Italianate, Craftsman, Tudor, and Prairie. Placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994, the area began as part of a 155-acre tract claimed circa 1838 by George Wright Sr., one of Oshkosh’s original settlers. After his death in 1841, his son William Wright received 106 acres, divided the land into city lots, and sold them at affordable prices to encourage settlement, earning a reputation as the Father of Oshkosh. The neighborhood became home to Oshkosh’s middle- and upper-class residents, including lumbermen, lawyers, merchants, bankers, doctors, educators, and politicians. Its influential residents included Rose C. Swart, who taught at the Oshkosh Normal School for 51 years and was a leader in the Women’s Suffrage Movement, as well as the lumber families of Morgan, Radford, Choate, Campbell, and Conlee. Several of its ornate homes were designed by Oshkosh architects Adam Bell, Edwin Cole, and William Waters, who lived in the neighborhood, designed many commercial structures on North Main Street after the fire of 1875, and also designed the Wisconsin Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.