Ransom Water Tower

Built in 1896. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.

From the record

“The Ransom Water Tower is a former water tower in the LaSalle County, Illinois, village of Ransom. National Register of Historic Places in 1990.”
Wikipedia article Ransom Water Tower, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 29 National Register listings published here for LaSalle County · listed in 1990 · category: Structure · built in 1896.

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. Plumb St. between Cartier and Columbus, Ransom, 60470
When was it listed? November 1990
Category. structure
Township. Allen township
When was it built? 1896
National Register reference number. 90001723 - 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

590 words

The chapter on Allen Township in History of LaSalle County, Illinois : Its Topography, Geology, Botany, Natural History, History of the Mound Builders, Indian Tribes, French Explorations, and a Sketch of the Pioneer Settlers of Each Town to 1840, with an Appendix, Giving the Present Status of the County, Its Population, Resources, Manufactures and Institutions, published 1877 names Ransom. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.

The extension of the Chicago, Pekin & Sonthwestern Railroad was built through the town of Allen in 1875, giving a direct communication with Chicago. The station was located near the centre of Section 16, which, fortunately for the town, had not been sold previous to the location of the road. The town of Ransom was laid out by the School Trustees, and lots sold to the amount of 85,000 ab the first sale. If judiciously managed, the town will realize a very efficient fund for the support of her schools through all the future.

Passage source: History of LaSalle County, Illinois : Its Topography, Geology, Botany, Natural History, History of the Mound Builders, Indian Tribes, French Explorations, and a Sketch of the Pioneer Settlers of Each Town to 1840, with an Appendix, Giving the Present Status of the County, Its Population, Resources, Manufactures and Institutions, published 1877.

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 Allen Township - 590 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Storms near this property

6 since 2004

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Ransom, the town this property stands in, in 6 storm reports between 2004 and 2020: 3 hail, 3 thunderstorm wind. 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 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Ransom	-	A tree was blown down onto power lines in Ransom.
November 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Ransom	-	Tops of trees were blown down. Sheet metal was damaged at a construction site.
June 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Ransom	-	Winds were estimated from 60 to 70 mph.
March 2006	Hail	Ransom	-	Golfball size hail was reported near N 19th and E 30th Roads.
March 2006	Hail	Ransom	-	no account filed
May 2004	Hail	Ransom	-	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.

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 90001723 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.
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.