BlockBefore
Photograph of Alexis Opera House
Photograph by Nyttend, Public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Alexis Opera House

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.

From the record

“The Alexis Opera House is a historic theater building located at 101-105 N. The building, which operated from 1889 until 1920, hosted traveling entertainment and community functions.”

Wikipedia article Alexis Opera House, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 11 National Register listings published here for Warren County · listed in 1987 · category: Building.

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 2 buildingss as contributing to the listing.
  • Address. 101--105 N. Main St., Alexis, 61412
  • When was it listed? July 1987
  • Category. building
  • Township. Spring Grove township
  • Architectural style. Romanesque Revival architecture
  • National Register reference number. 87001267 - 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.

The ground it stands on

5,838 words

The chapter on Spring Grove Township in Portrait and Biographical Album of Warren County, Illinois : Containing Full Page Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens of the County, Together with Portraits and Biographies of All the Governors of Illinois, and of the Presidents of the United States ; Also Containing a History of the County, from Its Earliest Settlement Up to the Present Time, published 1886 names Alexis. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.

John Armstrong and Wm. Miller with their families came in, in 1834. John H. Frantz and family located in the township, in 1835, and David H. Mc- Curry, in 1836. Horace Smith with his family enlarged the settlement in 1837. He came from Pennsylvania with his wife, Margaret, and four children - Robert, Isabelle, Mary and John. Charles and Owen were born in the township. Mr. Smith located on section 3, on which place lie lived until 1858, when he died. His widow survived him nearly a score of years, and died in the spring of 1885. All the children are living. Mary, who was married to Nathan Pettit, is living at Alexis.

Passage source: Portrait and Biographical Album of Warren County, Illinois : Containing Full Page Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens of the County, Together with Portraits and Biographies of All the Governors of Illinois, and of the Presidents of the United States ; Also Containing a History of the County, from Its Earliest Settlement Up to the Present Time, published 1886.

A postoffice was opened at Spring Grove, in 1835, soon after the Rock Island stage route was established. There was a little settlement at this place, and some trading done before the Rock Island & St. Louis R. R., was built and the town of Alexis was started, when the business, with most of the settlement here, moved to the latter place.

Passage source: Portrait and Biographical Album of Warren County, Illinois : Containing Full Page Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens of the County, Together with Portraits and Biographies of All the Governors of Illinois, and of the Presidents of the United States ; Also Containing a History of the County, from Its Earliest Settlement Up to the Present Time, published 1886.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Spring Grove Township - 5,838 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Storms near this property

13 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Alexis, the town this property stands in, in 13 storm reports between 1997 and 2025: 7 thunderstorm wind, 3 hail, 2 flash flood, 1 funnel cloud. 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
April 2006Thunderstorm WindAlexis$30,000While a tornado was moving across the north part of the town (in Mercer County), downburst winds or the rear flank downdraft downed power lines and trees in the south part of the town with varying amounts of damage done to structures.
June 2025Thunderstorm WindAlexis-Widespread wind damage with reports of shed roofs ripped off and large trees down.
June 2024Thunderstorm WindAlexis-Several tree limbs downed by the thunderstorm winds, which were 4 inches in diameter or larger.
April 2020HailAlexis-Hail ranged from penny to 1.5 inches.
July 2020Thunderstorm WindAlexis-Power poles were broken with 3 to 5 inch diameter tree branches down.
August 2017Thunderstorm WindAlexis-A trained spotter also reported pea size hail with the estimated wind gust.
July 2016Thunderstorm WindAlexis-A trained spotter reported estimated winds of 50 to 60 MPH.
August 2012HailAlexis-A brief period of pea to nickel sized hail was reported.
May 2011Flash FloodAlexis-Heavy rains resulted in some flash flooding of some roads and creeks in Alexis, IL during the evening of May 25.
June 2002Flash FloodAlexis-Several city roads closed due to high water.
April 2006HailAlexis-no account filed
June 2005Funnel CloudAlexis-no account filed
April 1997Thunderstorm WindAlexis-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Warren 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.

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 87001267 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Warren CountyAll 11 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.
  • 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.