From Charleston to St. Charles
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' until early settler and lawyer Steven S. Jones suggested the 1839 rename after learning a downstate town already used that name. Its earliest economy ran on water power -- lumber mills, gristmills, and wool carding mills turned by a dam on the Fox River, joined over the following century by flour, paper, and carding mills, an iron foundry, and even a linseed oil plant.
Water-Powered Foundations and River-Adjacent Construction
A river town built around water-powered industry puts a lot of St. Charles's oldest construction close to the Fox River and its dam, where drainage and grading were shaped as much by mill operations as by the house lots that came later, including the Roaring Twenties-era buildings like the Arcada Theatre and Hotel Baker. Because that riverside ground sits on the same Kane County glacial till found throughout the area, seasonal clay movement is a factor for river-adjacent foundations even when the visible construction looks nothing like a mill building.