Mercer County Fairgrounds

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.

From the record

“The Mercer County Fairgrounds, located on 12th Avenue SW in Aledo, are the home of the annual county fair in Mercer County, Illinois. The fairgrounds were established in 1869 when the fair moved to Aledo; from its creation in 1853 until then, it had taken place in Millersburg.”
Wikipedia article Mercer County Fairgrounds, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 12 National Register listings published here for Mercer County · listed in 1997 · category: District.

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

The listing

Address. 12th Ave., SW., .5 mi. S of jct. with IL 17, Aledo, 61231
When was it listed? May 1997
Category. district
Township. Mercer township
National Register reference number. 97000380 - 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

53,031 words

The chapter on Mercer Township in History of Mercer County : Together with Biographical Matter, Statistics, Etc., Gathered from Mattter Furnished by the Mercer County Historical Society, Interviews with Old Settlers, County, Township and Other Records, and Extracts from Files of Papers, Pamphlets, and Such Other Sources As Have Been Available : Containing Also a Short History of Henderson County, published 1882 names Aledo. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.

Much of the township is underlaid with coal of a good quality, but there have, as yet, been but few banks opened, as it generally lies too deep to work with profit. Banks in the northeast part of the township have been run for many years, but seldom at a great profit. Within a few years mines have been opened near Aledo and are still run on a small scale.

Passage source: History of Mercer County : Together with Biographical Matter, Statistics, Etc., Gathered from Mattter Furnished by the Mercer County Historical Society, Interviews with Old Settlers, County, Township and Other Records, and Extracts from Files of Papers, Pamphlets, and Such Other Sources As Have Been Available : Containing Also a Short History of Henderson County, published 1882.

In pursuance of the authority granted by this vote, bonds were issued for the above amount, March 23, 1869, in sums of $100 each, payable ten years after date, and bearing ten per cent interest, payable annually ; the bonds "to be delivered to the company wlien the iron was laid from Galva to Aledo, provided said iron was laid on or before July 1, 1869."

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 Mercer Township - 53,031 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

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 Mercer County Fairgrounds: 1 past producer. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Stone. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Mercer County Pit	Stone	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Mercer County

Storms near this property

40 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Aledo, the town this property stands in, in 40 storm reports between 1993 and 2025: 24 thunderstorm wind, 8 hail, 4 tornado, 1 lightning. The reports record 1 death. 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
June 1997	Lightning	Aledo	1 killed	no account filed
April 2003	Tornado (F1)	Aledo	$500,000	Damaged farm buildings
June 2010	Flash Flood	Aledo	$50,000	Heavy rains resulted in flash flooding in Aledo, IL during the evening of June 18. Several streets were flooded and Highway 17 had water covering it.
April 2003	Tornado (F0)	Aledo	$50,000	traveled through open country
May 2003	Tornado (F0)	Aledo	$50,000	no account filed
April 2006	Hail	Aledo	$20,000	Window cracked with hole the size of a half dollar; pea to half dollar size hail during the storm.
April 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	$10,000	Trees/limbs and power lines down across the city.
March 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	$5,000	Trees and power lines down
June 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	$1,000	no account filed
August 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	-	Trees and power lines were blown down in town.
February 2024	Hail	Aledo	-	The hail was half dollar to silver dollar size.
February 2024	Hail	Aledo	-	Photo received through social media.
April 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	-	A public report of power poles down near Highway 17and 200th Street. The time of the event was estimated using radar.
April 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	-	An NWS Storm Survey found that a portion of the roof was torn off the Community Bible Fellowship Church.
August 2023	Hail	Aledo	-	Broadcast media relayed a report of a mix of quarter to half dollar size hail.
March 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	-	A trained spotter reported a thunderstorm wind gust of 60 MPH.
August 2022	Tornado (EFU)	Aledo	-	Eyewitness reports along with video and photographic evidence from storm chasers support an intermittent tornado path of nearly 3 miles. There are also reports of minor crop damage associated with tornado. Times were based on detailed information from chasers. With no observable damage to assess, this tornado is rated an EF-U.
April 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	-	A trained spotter reported thunderstorm wind damage to a farm outbuilding south of Aledo. Pictures via social media show part of a wall blown out, but the barn was open to one side and the other wall is partially covered. Time of the event was estimated using radar.
July 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	-	Downed power pole reported.
July 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	-	A large pine tree was uprooted along Highway 94 south of Aledo.
August 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	-	Law enforcement relayed a report of trees down in Aledo.
September 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	-	Local law enforcement reported a few trees and power lines down.
July 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	-	The county emergency manager reported a couple of trees were down.
July 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	-	Local law enforcement reported a tree was down.
July 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	-	The emergency manager reported furniture blown around and a semi trailer was blown over at the Mercer County Fair in Aledo. Some trees were also blown down in town. Winds were estimated around 60 MPH.
June 2008	Hail	Aledo	-	Penny to nickel-sized hail fell just northeast of Aledo, IL around 6:45 pm June 14.
March 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	-	Sheriffs department reported at least one power pole blown down just north of Aledo, and numerous small branches down around the Aledo area.
March 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	-	A homestead in rural Aledo suffered heavy damage. High winds shattered windows and destroyed a barn, three empty grain storage bins, a fence, several dog houses and a children's swing set.
June 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	-	A wooden swingset was blown over, and a trampoline was picked up and blown into a field.
May 2002	Flood	Aledo	-	Minor flooding reported on some secondary roads.
June 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	-	Several tree limbs downed. A large tree was blown down onto a baseball field.
March 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	-	Numerous trees and power lines were downed.
July 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	-	Trees and power lines down.
June 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	-	Trees down across route 94.
August 1993	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	-	Winds knocked out windows and damaged a gutter at a house. Eight trees were uprooted, farm buildings were damaged.
April 2024	Hail	Aledo	-	no account filed
August 2023	Hail	Aledo	-	no account filed
April 2003	Funnel Cloud	Aledo	-	no account filed
June 2002	Hail	Aledo	-	no account filed
April 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Aledo	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Mercer 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

3 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
Mercer County Jail	1.0 miles	1997
Mercer County Courthouse	1.0 miles	1982
Downtown Aledo Historic District	1.1 miles	2016

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 97000380 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Mercer County	All 12 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.
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.