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Photograph of St. Mary's Church
Photograph by Nyttend, Public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons.

St. Mary's Church

Built in 1909 (Romanesque Revival architecture). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

From the record

“Mary's Catholic Church, known as the "Prairie Cathedral" or the "Cathedral of the Cornfields", is a Roman Catholic church in Beaverville, Illinois. The Romanesque Revival church was built in 1909-1911.”

Wikipedia article St. Mary's Church (Beaverville, Illinois), CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 7 National Register listings published here for Iroquois County · listed in 1996 · category: Building · built in 1909, Romanesque Revival architecture, by Joseph Molitor.

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

The listing

  • Address. 308 St. Charles Ave., Beaverville, 60912
  • When was it listed? May 1996
  • Category. building
  • Township. Beaverville township
  • When was it built? 1909
  • Architectural style. Romanesque Revival architecture
  • Architect. Joseph Molitor
  • National Register reference number. 96000514 - 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

10,507 words

This property stands in Beaverville Township. History of Iroquois County, Together with Historic Notes on the Northwest, Gleaned from Early Authors, Old Maps and Manuscripts, Private and Official Correspondence, and Other Authentic, Though, for the Most Part, Out-of-the-way Sources, published 1880 gives that township a chapter of its own.

The chapter covers the township.

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 Beaverville Township - 10,507 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Fires near this property

2 since 2013

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 2 fires within 5 miles of St. Mary's Church between 2013 and 2014, burning under an acre 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
Equipment and vehicle use1
Debris and open burning1

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
14 May 2013Debris and open burningunder an acreIllinois Division of Forestry Resources13-00024
27 April 2014Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreIllinois Division of Forestry Resources14-00027

Every fire recorded in Iroquois County

Mines and quarries near this property

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of St. Mary's Church: 1 past producer. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. 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
Kendall PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer

Every working recorded in Iroquois County

Storms near this property

7 since 2001

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Beaverville, the town this property stands in, in 7 storm reports between 2001 and 2026: 4 thunderstorm wind, 2 tornado, 1 hail. 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
May 2011Thunderstorm WindBeaverville$5,000The roof of a barn was damaged between Donovan and Beaverville. Tree damage was also reported near Beaverville.
April 2026Tornado (EFU)Beaverville-Several videos were shared of a slow-moving landspout tornado that occurred a few miles east of Beaverville and north northeast of Donovan in rural northeast Iroquois County. No known damage was reported.
June 2019Thunderstorm WindBeaverville-A brick wall collapsed and took down a power line.
April 2006Tornado (F0)Beaverville-A brief tornado was reported northwest of Beaverville.
March 2025Thunderstorm WindBeaverville-no account filed
March 2016HailBeaverville-no account filed
July 2001Thunderstorm WindBeaverville-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Iroquois 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 96000514 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Iroquois CountyAll 7 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.