Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
From the record
“The French Colonial Historic District is a historic district that encompasses a major region of 18th-century French colonization in southwestern Illinois. The district is anchored by Fort de Chartres and Fort Kaskaskia, two important French settlements and military posts in what was then the Illinois Country.”
Wikipedia article French Colonial Historic District, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 12 National Register listings published here for Randolph County · listed in 1974 · category: District.
National Register reference number.74000772- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Fires near this property
3 since 2009
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 3 fires within 5 miles of French Colonial Historic District
between 2009 and 2020, burning under an acre in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
2
Recreation and ceremony
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
13 workings within 5 miles of French Colonial Historic District: 12 past producers, 1 producer.
1 still produces. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Sand and Gravel, Construction, Calcium. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Prairie du Rocher, the town this property stands in, in 16 storm reports between 1995 and 2025: 8 hail, 6 thunderstorm wind, 1 flash flood, 1 tornado.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
A brief tornado touched down just south of Prairie du Rocher, destroying an outbuilding before heading north-northeast. From there the tornado caused tree damage and damaged another farm outbuilding before dissipating just southwest of Route 155.
Up to four inches of rain fell in a short amount of time causing flash flooding. Numerous roads were flooded including Illinois Route 150 just west of intersection with Illinois Route 4.
Thunderstorm winds blew down several large trees, tree limbs and power lines around town. One tree fell onto an unoccupied vehicle causing major damage.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
Listed places nearby
2 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
Block
