Babylon Bend Bridge

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

From the record

“The Babylon Bend Bridge is one of nine metal highway bridges in Fulton County, Illinois listed on the National Register of Historic Places and still standing. This bridge was built in 1890 over the Spoon River and is located along Illinois Route 123 near Ellisville.”
Wikipedia article Babylon Bend Bridge, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 38 National Register listings published here for Fulton County · listed in 1980 · category: Structure.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
Address. SR 123, Ellisville, 61415
When was it listed? October 1980
Category. structure
Also known as. Metal Highway Bridges of Fulton County TR
Township. Lee township
National Register reference number. 80001355 - 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 2019

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 2 fires within 5 miles of Babylon Bend Bridge between 2019 and 2020, burning about 2 acres 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
Debris and open burning	2

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
4 April 2020	Debris and open burning	1.4 acres	Illinois Division of Forestry Resources	20-012
28 March 2019	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Illinois Division of Forestry Resources	19-023

Every fire recorded in Fulton County

Mines and quarries near this property

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Babylon Bend Bridge: 2 past producers. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Spoon River Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
	Spoon River Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Fulton County

Storms near this property

6 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Ellisville, the town this property stands in, in 6 storm reports between 1997 and 2023: 4 thunderstorm wind, 2 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.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
May 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Ellisville	$500	Thunderstorm winds blew down several large trees and power lines between Ellisville and Farmington. No injuries were reported.
August 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Ellisville	-	A young cedar tree was blown down.
November 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Ellisville	-	Several large trees were blown down. Also, several utility poles were blown down in Ellisville, Lewistown, and Canton.
August 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Ellisville	-	Thunderstorm winds blew down several large trees, tree limbs, and power lines as they moved through the Ellisville, Canton, and Lewistown areas. One large tree blocked Route 9 four miles west of Canton. No injuries were reported and no damage estimate was available.
May 2023	Hail	Ellisville	-	no account filed
July 2008	Hail	Ellisville	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Fulton County

Map coverage status

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

4 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.

Property	Distance	Listed
Odd Fellows Opera Block	3.7 miles	1996
Buckeye Bridge	4.1 miles	1980
Seville Bridge	6.9 miles	1980
Indian Ford Bridge	7.9 miles	1980

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 80001355 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Fulton County	All 38 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

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.