Marseilles Hydro Plant

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

From the record

“The Marseilles Hydro Plant, also known as the Marseilles Hydro Development or the Marseilles Hydro Power Station, is a historic hydroelectric power station along the Illinois River in Marseilles, Illinois, USA.”
Wikipedia article Marseilles Hydro Plant, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 29 National Register listings published here for LaSalle County · listed in 1989 · category: District.

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

The listing

Address. Commercial St., Marseilles, 61341
When was it listed? May 1989
Category. district
Township. Rutland township
Architectural style. Neoclassical architecture
National Register reference number. 89000343 - 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

1 since 2020

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 1 fire within 5 miles of Marseilles Hydro Plant in 2020, burning about 4 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
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
27 May 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	4.0 acres	Illinois Division of Forestry Resources	20-166

Every fire recorded in LaSalle County

Mines and quarries near this property

7 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 7 workings within 5 miles of Marseilles Hydro Plant: 6 past producers, 1 producer. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Clay, Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Thompson Pit	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Lucy Pit & Mill / Portable #1	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Lucy Pit 1-A	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Materialite Pit	Clay	Past Producer
Ottawa Shale Pit	Clay	Past Producer
Porter Co.Clay Pit	Clay	Past Producer
Spicer Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Storms near this property

35 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Marseilles, the town this property stands in, in 35 storm reports between 1994 and 2026: 13 thunderstorm wind, 13 hail, 3 flash flood, 3 flood. 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
July 2015	Hail	Marseilles	$1,000,000	There were numerous reports of hail of up to 3.75 inches in diameter across portions of Marseilles. A picture of the largest hail was received via social media. A car dealership reported 40 damaged cars, 10 of which had shattered windshields. A greenhouse was shattered. The siding on numerous houses was damaged.
June 2011	Flood	Marseilles	$50,000	Minor street flooding along with some basement flooding was reported. Storm total rainfall amounts of 1.50 inches were measured in Marseilles.
April 2006	Flash Flood	Marseilles	$25,000	Torrential rains caused street flooding in Marseilles. Several creeks overflowed, along with portions of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, causing some damage to structures along the paths. Rainfall amounts between 2 and 3 inches were reported in only one hour.
July 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Marseilles	$10,000	The blade of a wind turbine was damaged.
May 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Marseilles	$5,000	A roof was blown off a machine building and large tree limbs were blown down. Debris was wrapped around trees.
April 2026	Hail	Marseilles	-	Lots of pea size hail was reported with a few quarter size hail stones.
July 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Marseilles	-	A personal weather station measured a wind gust to 78 mph.
July 2020	Heavy Rain	Marseilles	-	Rainfall of 1.81 inches was measured in one hour, most occurred in less than 30 minutes.
July 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Marseilles	-	Several tree limbs were blown down in Marseilles.
June 2015	Flash Flood	Marseilles	-	One to two feet of rapidly flowing water rushed through the business district of Marseilles.
May 2012	Flash Flood	Marseilles	-	Ryall Street was impassable and closed due to flooding. Approximately two feet of water was covering the road at the time of the report with runoff continuing to run downhill into the flooded area.
July 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Marseilles	-	Wind gusts were estimated to 60 mph.
June 2011	Flood	Marseilles	-	Heavy rain caused 5 to 6 inches of standing water at the intersection of County Road 15 and County Road 30.
April 2011	Flood	Marseilles	-	Minor flooding of roads and ditches was reported in Marseilles.
August 2009	Heavy Rain	Marseilles	-	Rainfall of 2.21 inches was reported in the past 24 hours.
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Marseilles	-	A wind gust to 65 mph was measured in Marseilles.
August 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Marseilles	-	Wind equipment measured a gust to 58 mph.
April 1995	Hail	Marseilles	-	The county sheriff's department reported marble-size hail covered the ground two inches deep west of Marseilles at Interstate 80.
July 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Marseilles	-	Tree limbs in excess of six-inches in diameter were blown down.
April 2026	Thunderstorm Wind	Marseilles	-	no account filed
May 2020	Hail	Marseilles	-	no account filed
May 2019	Hail	Marseilles	-	no account filed
May 2011	Hail	Marseilles	-	no account filed
April 2006	Hail	Marseilles	-	no account filed
September 2006	Hail	Marseilles	-	no account filed
March 2005	Hail	Marseilles	-	no account filed
May 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Marseilles	-	no account filed
July 2003	Hail	Marseilles	-	no account filed
July 2003	Hail	Marseilles	-	no account filed
August 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Marseilles	-	no account filed
August 2003	Hail	Marseilles	-	no account filed
June 2001	Hail	Marseilles	-	no account filed
September 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Marseilles	-	no account filed
August 1995	Tornado (F0)	Marseilles	-	no account filed
July 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Marseilles	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in LaSalle 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.

Property	Distance	Listed
Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Depot	0.5 miles	1995
Marseilles Lock and Dam Historic District	0.8 miles	2004
Fisher-Nash-Griggs House	5.1 miles	1998
Armour's Warehouse	5.4 miles	1997
Andrew J. O'Conor III House	6.1 miles	1993
Ottawa East Side Historic District	6.3 miles	2013

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 89000343 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
LaSalle County	All 29 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.