Benson Water Tower

Built in 1891. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.

From the record

“The Benson Water Tower was a water tower located on Clayton Street in Benson, Illinois. The tower was built in 1891, in response to several serious fires in Benson; it supplied the village with water until 1985.”
Wikipedia article Benson Water Tower, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 8 National Register listings published here for Woodford County · listed in 1987 · category: Structure · built in 1891.

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

The listing

Listing status. The Park Service records this property as Removed.
What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
Address. Clayton St. between Front & Pleasant Sts., Benson, 61516
When was it listed? November 1987
Category. structure
Township. Clayton township
When was it built? 1891
National Register reference number. 87002034 - 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 2011

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 3 fires within 5 miles of Benson Water Tower between 2011 and 2016, burning about 41 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	1
Equipment and vehicle use	1
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1

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
29 September 2012	Equipment and vehicle use	40 acres	Illinois Division of Forestry Resources	BALLY
20 May 2016	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Illinois Division of Forestry Resources	FARM
6 April 2011	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Illinois Division of Forestry Resources	41124

Every fire recorded in Woodford County

Storms near this property

16 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Benson, the town this property stands in, in 16 storm reports between 1996 and 2023: 8 thunderstorm wind, 4 hail, 4 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.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
May 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Benson	$80,000	Thunderstorm winds blew down a few trees and tree limbs in Benson. Also, the "doglegs" of a grain bin were blown off, several large sheds had their doors blown in, and some siding damage was reported in the area. No injuries were reported and damage was estimated around $80,000.
May 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Benson	$20,000	A machine shed was damaged.
March 2009	Thunderstorm Wind	Benson	$10,000	Power lines were blown down south of the intersection of routes 116 and 117 near Benson.
May 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Benson	$8,000	The roof and doors of a machine shed were blown off.
June 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Benson	$7,000	A tree was blown onto a garage 1 mile south of Benson.
June 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Benson	$4,000	A tree was blown onto a power line in Benson.
September 2012	Tornado (EF0)	Benson	$1,000	A tornado touched down in a field about 4 miles north-northwest of Benson in Woodford County at 12:05 PM CDT. The tornado traveled northwestward and crossed into Marshall County 1.2 miles southeast of Pattonsburg at 12:08 PM CDT. While in Woodford County, the tornado tore the tin roof off a shed and did minor damage to a corn field.
May 2019	Tornado (EF0)	Benson	-	A tornado briefly touched down in an open field 3.4 miles northwest of Benson at 4:38 PM CDT. No damage was reported.
September 2012	Tornado (EF0)	Benson	-	A tornado touched down in a field about 3 miles north of Benson in Woodford County at 12:03 PM CDT. The tornado traveled west across County Road 2200E before dissipating at 12:04 PM CDT. No damage was reported.
September 2012	Tornado (EF0)	Benson	-	A tornado briefly touched down in a field about 2 miles east-southeast of Benson in Woodford County at 11:48 AM CDT. No damage was reported.
May 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Benson	-	Thunderstorm winds blew down several large tree limbs.
March 2023	Hail	Benson	-	no account filed
March 2023	Hail	Benson	-	no account filed
June 2009	Hail	Benson	-	no account filed
May 1999	Hail	Benson	-	no account filed
July 1996	Thunderstorm Wind	Benson	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Woodford 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 record	The nomination case file for reference 87002034 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Woodford County	All 8 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.
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.