Illinois' Oldest Fox River Mill Town in This Area
St. Charles traces to March 1834, when Evan Shelby and William Franklin settled the east bank of the Fox River at what is now Baker Memorial Park and first called the place 'Charleston'; it was renamed St. Charles in 1839 after early settler Steven S. Jones discovered a downstate town already used that name. A dam built on the river soon powered lumber mills, gristmills, and wool carding mills, and by 1950 the riverbank also carried flour, grist, paper, and carding mills, an iron foundry, condensed-milk and pottery factories, and a linseed and castor oil plant.
A Century of Riverbank Industry Left Its Mark Underground
A century of mills, foundries, and factories built directly against a dammed river means St. Charles has some of the oldest foundations in this coverage area sitting right where the water table is highest, along the same banks that later became Pottawatomie Park in 1912 and drew Roaring Twenties visitors to the Arcada Theatre and Hotel Baker. Basements and crawl spaces near that historic riverfront core tend to answer to the river's water level and to the clay-heavy glacial till beneath it more than to any single point of damage in the wall.