Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
From the record
“Hofmann Tower is a tower in Lyons, Illinois. Built in 1908, it is named after local brewer George Hofmann Jr., who built the tower and a neighboring dam as part of a park that attracted visitors to picnic and ride boats.”
Wikipedia article Hofmann Tower, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 621 National Register listings published here for Cook County · listed in 1978 · category: Site.
National Register reference number.78001139- 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
2 since 2005
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 2 fires within 5 miles of Hofmann Tower
in 2005, burning about 1 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
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
11 workings within 5 miles of Hofmann Tower: 8 past producers, 2 plants, 1 producer.
3 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Perlite. 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
Lyons, the town this property stands in, in 6 storm reports between 2004 and 2022: 5 thunderstorm wind, 1 hail.
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 live power line was blown down onto a metal fence. The fence began conducting electricity and sparks jumped from the fence to the aluminum siding of a house. The sparks started a fire which destroyed the house.
Tree damage was reported throughout much of Lyons. Power lines were blown down. A tree fell onto a house on Prescott Avenue, but did not damage the house.
Trees, tree limbs and power lines were blown down in Lyons. A photo showed a large tree that was uprooted and fell onto a house. Two large trees were uprooted, which damaged a sidewalk.
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
6 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.
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