Water-Powered Mills Have Lined This Riverbank Since 1834
St. Charles was founded in March 1834 by Evan Shelby and William Franklin on the east bank of the Fox River, at what is now Baker Memorial Park, and was first called 'Charleston' before being renamed St. Charles in 1839 at the suggestion of early settler Steven S. Jones. The town's earliest industries -- lumber mills, gristmills, and wool carding mills -- all ran on water wheels turned by a man-made dam on the Fox River, and by 1950 that industrial base had grown to include flour, grist, paper, and carding mills, an iron foundry, condensed-milk and pottery factories, and a linseed and castor oil plant.
From a Working Millrace to Today's Flood-Plain Reality
A downtown built up around a working dam for more than a century means St. Charles has an unusually long relationship with the Fox River's moods, from the mill era through the 1969 'Pride of the Fox' branding to today's Pottawatomie Park -- itself created in 1912 as the first designated public park in Illinois, right along the water. That same proximity puts older commercial buildings and riverside homes in the path of the kind of high water the Fox River produced in the 1996 regional flood disaster and the April 2013 flooding nearby, and a proper St. Charles evaluation has to look at how a structure's age and closeness to the historic millrace affect how water moves through it.
Project Paths
Planning a water damage restoration Project in St. Charles
Water category, elapsed time, hidden cavities, electrical safety, and material porosity determine the right response. This site does not promise emergency availability.