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Photograph of Western Springs Water Tower
Photograph by Teemu08 at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Western Springs Water Tower

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981.

From the record

“The Western Springs Water Tower is a museum and former water tower in Western Springs, Illinois. The water tower is considered a symbol of Western Springs by residents, and multiple businesses and local organizations have taken their names from the tower.”

Wikipedia article Western Springs Water Tower, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 621 National Register listings published here for Cook County · listed in 1981 · category: Site.

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. 914 Hillgrove Ave., Western Springs, 60558
  • When was it listed? June 1981
  • Category. site
  • Township. Lyons township
  • National Register reference number. 81000219 - 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 Western Springs Water Tower in 2005, burning about 1 acre in total. 1 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/undetermined1
Natural1

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

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
25 June 2005Naturalunder an acreIllinois State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
20 May 2005Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIllinois State Fire Marshal's Officenot named

Every fire recorded in Cook County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 12 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 12 workings within 5 miles of Western Springs Water Tower: 9 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.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Silbrico Expanded Perilite PlantPerliteProducer
A C O'Laughlin Stone Co QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer
Bellwood QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer
Dolese and Shepard Crushed StoneStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer
Federal Quarry & MillStone, Crushed/BrokenPlant
Mc Cook Yard No. 387 & MillStone, Crushed/BrokenPlant
Riverside Lime and Stone Co QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer
Summit Quarry Consumers CompanyStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer
Superior Stone Co QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer
Unnamed Limestone QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer

Every working recorded in Cook County

Storms near this property

1 since 2024

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Western Springs, the town this property stands in, in 1 storm report in 2024: 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
July 2024Tornado (EF0)Western Springs-A tornado with estimated peak winds of 75 mph touched down near 41st Street and Poplar Place in La Grange and moved northeast through Brookfield, Riverside and Berwyn before ending just northeast of the intersection of Cermak Road and Laramie Road. Damage along the tornado's path was entirely confined to trees.

Every storm recorded in Cook 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

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.

Photograph PropertyDistance Listed
First Congregational Church of Western Springs0.4 miles2006
George E. Purple House0.9 miles2005
Emmanuel Episcopal Church1.4 miles2017
La Grange Village Historic District1.5 miles1979
Lyons Township Hall1.7 miles1978
Grossdale Station3.1 miles1982

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 81000219 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Cook CountyAll 621 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.