Svea Land Company Office
a.k.a. Oscar Johnson Memorial Library
S. 6th St., Silverhill, ALThe Svea Land Company Office building is significant for its associations with the large influx of immigrants into agrarian Baldwin County in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. More specifically, this building, which was the second building and first non-residential structure to be built in Silverhill, served as a focus for the colonization of Silverhill by Swedish immigrants. Pockets of early settlement in Baldwin County are still clearly discernible today with native languages still spoken in such places as Elberta and Robertsdale.
Local significance of the building:Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.