BlockFrom the record
One of 141 National Register listings published here for Rock County · listed in 1985 · category: Structure.
Sources: the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service
Clinton Water Tower
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
The listing
- What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
- Address. High St., Clinton, 53525
- When was it listed? March 1985
- Category. structure
- Also known as. Water Works Structures of Rock County - 19th Century TR
- Town. Clinton town
- National Register reference number. 85000493 - 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
20,295 wordsThe chapter on Clinton Town in The History of Rock County, Wisconsin; Its Early Settlement, Growth, Development, Resources, Etc., published 1879 names Clinton. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.
The town of Clinton was organized by an act of the Territorial Legislature, approved February 17, 1842, and comprised the territory of the present town, the south half of Bradford and portions of Turtle and La Prairie. By an act approved March 23, 1843, five sections in the present town of Turtle were annexed and made a part of it. These boundaries were subsequently changed, and at present it comprises the whole of Township 1, north of Range 14 east, being the southeastern township in the county.
Passage source: The History of Rock County, Wisconsin; Its Early Settlement, Growth, Development, Resources, Etc., published 1879.
REV. O. AKTDREWSON, Minister of Lutheran Norwegian Church, Sec. 24 4 P.O.Clinton; born in Bradsberg, Norway, March 2, 1818 ; Mr. Andrewson graduated at a seminary in the old country, taught school about three years, and came to New York City in 1841; went to Buffalo, thence to Milwaukee, Wis., in 1844 ; moved to Clinton and settled on eighty acres ; now has 280 acres and a good farm well improved ; Mr. Andrewson is Pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in connection with the Norwegian Augusta Synod ; he entered the ministry in 1846 ; has been Pastor of this church twentyfour years, and has organized several churches in Illinois and Wisconsin ; was one of the pioneers in the ministry, and the oldest minister in the Synod ; preached in town of Newark and organized the church there, and also has a church in Woodstock, 111., and has a large congregation in Leland, La Salle Co.; organized that church in 1847. Married Rachel Paulson, 1843 ; have had eleven children - Isabel (married C. R. Matteson, Justice of the Peace at Chicago) ; Paul served with credit in the naval service on the Miss-ยป issippi River and tributaries during the war and is now at home ; Andrew is living in Clinton (married Cornelia Hawkinson) ; Annie is in Chicago ; Oliver lives at home - he is the patentee of a farm gate which is fast becoming popular; Caroline lives in Chicago ; Rebecca is at home ; Louisa teaches school in Clinton ; Emma Catherina and Henry at home ; Oscar N. died in infancy.
Passage source: The History of Rock County, Wisconsin; Its Early Settlement, Growth, Development, Resources, Etc., published 1879.
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 Clinton Town - 20,295 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.
Fires near this property
6 since 2018Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 6 fires within 5 miles of Clinton Water Tower between 2018 and 2019, burning about 26 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 | 3 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 3 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 June 2019 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 2019137 |
| 22 May 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 1800001 |
| 3 April 2019 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 19126 |
| 5 March 2018 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 18067 |
| 18 March 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 18075 |
| 11 March 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 25 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 2018049 |
Mines and quarries near this property
10 within 5 milesRegional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 10 workings within 5 miles of Clinton Water Tower: 5 producers, 5 past producers. 5 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Sand and Gravel, Construction, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Little Quarry | Stone | Producer | ||
| Bradford Township Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Rye Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Producer | ||
| Rye Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Skunk Hollow Pit Number 2 | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Boutelle Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Producer | ||
| Braukoff Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Past Producer | ||
| Dunn Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Producer | ||
| Dunn Trucking & Limestone Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Past Producer | ||
| Little Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Producer |
Storms near this property
25 since 1996Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Clinton, the town this property stands in, in 25 storm reports between 1996 and 2026: 17 thunderstorm wind, 4 hail, 1 flash flood, 1 funnel cloud. The reports record 3 injuries. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 1998 | Flash Flood | Clinton | 2 hurt, $250,000 | no account filed |
| July 2009 | Lightning | Clinton | 1 hurt | A 44-year-old woman was struck by lightning while standing in the doorway of a barn holding the reins of a horse. She was taken to Beloit Memorial Hospital and treated in the emergency department. |
| June 1998 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clinton | $57,000 | no account filed |
| March 2004 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clinton | $40,000 | no account filed |
| May 2013 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clinton | $10,000 | Law enforcement officials indicated numerous trees and power lines downed by thunderstorm wind gusts, estimated at 70 mph (61 knots), along a path from 3 miles west-northwest of Clinton to 3 miles southeast of Clinton. |
| July 2003 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clinton | $5,000 | no account filed |
| April 1996 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clinton | $5,000 | no account filed |
| June 2013 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clinton | $4,000 | The Rock County Emergency manager reported many large trees uprooted and branches downed by thunderstorm wind gusts estimated at 65 mph (56 knots) along a path from Clinton to 4 miles south of Clinton. |
| June 2024 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clinton | $2,000 | A couple trees down on powerlines near Clinton. |
| April 2026 | Flood | Clinton | $1,000 | Floodwaters over a portion of highway 140 on the north side of Clinton. |
| March 2004 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clinton | $1,000 | no account filed |
| July 1999 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clinton | $1,000 | no account filed |
| September 1997 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clinton | $300 | no account filed |
| May 2008 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clinton | $100 | Powerful straight-line winds and brief heavy rains uprooted some trees and damaged a mailbox. |
| August 2025 | Hail | Clinton | - | Image of ping-pong ball sized hail. |
| June 2011 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clinton | - | Powerful thunderstorm winds toppled several large trees. |
| June 2008 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clinton | - | Powerful thunderstorms winds knocked down large trees in the Clinton area. |
| August 2025 | Hail | Clinton | - | no account filed |
| July 2016 | Hail | Clinton | - | no account filed |
| May 2004 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clinton | - | no account filed |
| July 2003 | Hail | Clinton | - | no account filed |
| April 2002 | Funnel Cloud | Clinton | - | no account filed |
| June 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clinton | - | no account filed |
| August 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clinton | - | no account filed |
| July 1998 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clinton | - | no account filed |
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 milesOther 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.
| Photograph | Property | Distance | Listed |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Homer B. DeLong House | 0.2 miles | 1985 |
 | A. E. Taylor House | 0.3 miles | 1985 |
 | Richardson-Brinkman Cobblestone House | 0.3 miles | 1977 |
 | John Smith House | 0.4 miles | 1985 |
 | J. L. Pangborn House | 0.4 miles | 1985 |
 | Clinton Village Hall | 0.4 miles | 1985 |
Sources for this property
| National Archives record | The nomination case file for reference 85000493 in Record Group 79. |
| Rock County | All 141 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.