Grafton Historic District (Grafton, Illinois)

The Grafton Bank is a historic bank building located at 225 E. Main St. in Grafton, Illinois. The Classical Revival building was constructed in 1913. The buff brick building features extensive terra cotta ornamentation on its front facade. A Diocletian window and terra cotta transom bar top the entrance, and terra cotta pilasters stand on either side. A classical entablature tops the entrance; the entablature includes an architrave, a frieze inscribed with the bank's name, and a dentillated three-section cornice. A brick parapet wall tops the facade; a stepped parapet recedes from the wall along the sides of the building. The bank which originally occupied the building closed in the 1930s, and the building has since been used for a variety of other, mainly commercial, purposes. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 16, 1994. The building was featured on The Profit, a CNBC program.

The Ruebel Hotel is a historic hotel located at 207–215 E. Main St. in Grafton, Illinois. Built in 1913, the structure is the second hotel building on the site; the original Ruebel Hotel was built in 1879 and burned down in 1912. The Commercial style building features decorative brickwork typical of the style; the building's cornice has brick corbelling, and raised brick panels decorate the space above the second-story brick arched windows. The hotel, which also included a saloon and a restaurant, gained a reputation as one of the best in Jersey County. It is the only surviving hotel in Grafton. The hotel was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 16, 1994.

The John and Amelia McClintock House is a historic building located at 321 E. Main Street in Grafton, Illinois. Boat builder John McClintock built the house for his family circa 1910. The rock-faced concrete house, an unusual departure from Grafton's limestone buildings, has a Queen Anne design. The entrance is located at the corner of a wraparound front porch and is topped by a conical roof. The front of the house has a cutaway bay, giving the house an asymmetrical appearance, and the gable roof has multiple components; both features are typical of Queen Anne designs. The building is now used as a commercial property. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 16, 1994.

The Slaten-LaMarsh House is a historic house located at 25 E. Main St. in Grafton, Illinois. The house was built circa 1840 for D.C. Slaten, the first mayor of Grafton. The house has a side hall plan, a design featuring a hall on one side and rooms connected by the hall on the other. It is a rare 1+1⁄2-story side-hall plan house, as other houses using the plan in Grafton are all two stories. Locally quarried limestone was used to build the house; at the time of its construction, Grafton limestone was only used to build structures within the city, though it later became a widespread building material in the region. The limestone blocks on the front facade are visibly more ashlar than those on the sides, a masonry choice which gives the front corners a quoin-like appearance. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 16, 1994.

The Charles Brainerd House is a historic house located at 420 E. Main St. in Grafton, Illinois. The house was built in 1885 for Charles Corrington Brainerd, the superintendent of the Grafton Stone and Transportation Company. Architect William Embley designed the house in the Queen Anne style. The house has an asymmetrical plan which includes an angled front entrance and a multi-component roof with several gables and a pyramid above the entrance. Three of the gable ends feature coved cornices and decorative shingles and wood pieces. The front porch is supported by turned posts and features quarter round brackets and a spindlework cornice on its roof. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 5, 1998.

Grafton is the oldest city in Jersey County, Illinois, United States. It is located near the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 626. Prior to the Great Flood of 1993, Grafton had enjoyed a stable population of nearly 1,000 residents. Grafton is a part of the Metro-East region and Greater St. Louis.

The Paris Mason Building is a historic house located at 100 N. Springfield St. in Grafton, Illinois. The house was built circa 1840 for Paris Mason, the brother of Grafton's founder James Mason, and was at the time a riverfront building which Mason used as a house and warehouse. The four-room hall and parlor house was built with rock-faced limestone; its only decorations are the limestone lintels and sills on the windows. The building is an early example of local limestone construction in Grafton, as it predates the regional boom in limestone quarrying and construction in the 1850s. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 6, 1994.

The Illinois River (Miami-Illinois: Inoka Siipiiwi) is a principal tributary of the Mississippi River at approximately 273 miles (439 km) in length. Located in the U.S. state of Illinois, the river has a drainage basin of 28,756.6 square miles (74,479 km2). The Illinois River begins with the confluence of the Des Plaines and Kankakee rivers in the Chicago metropolitan area, and it generally flows to the southwest across Illinois, until it empties into the Mississippi near Grafton, Illinois. Its drainage basin extends into southeastern Wisconsin, northwestern Indiana, and a very small area of southwestern Michigan in addition to central Illinois. Along its banks are several river ports, including the largest, Peoria, Illinois. Historic and recreation areas on the river include Starved Rock, and the internationally important wetlands of the Emiquon Complex and Dixon Waterfowl Refuge. The river was important among Native Americans and early French traders as the principal water route connecting the Great Lakes with the Mississippi. The French colonial settlements along these rivers formed the heart of the area known as the Illinois Country in the 17th and 18th centuries. After the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal and the Hennepin Canal in the 19th century, the role of the river as link between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi was extended into the era of modern industrial shipping. The Illinois now forms the basis for the Illinois Waterway, extending the river's capabilities for navigation and commercial shipping.

St. Charles County Smartt Airport, also known as Smartt Field, is a county-owned, public-use airport in St. Charles County, Missouri, United States. It is located nine nautical miles (17 km) northeast of the central business district of the City of St. Charles. This facility is included in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems, which categorized it as a general aviation reliever airport. Although many U.S. airports use the same three-letter location identifier for the FAA and IATA, this airport is assigned SET by the FAA but has no designation from the IATA.

Chautauqua is a populated place in Jersey County, Illinois. Also known as the New Piasa Chautauqua Historic District which is a private semi-gated summer resort that started as a 19th-century tent settlement. The name Piasa is taken from a nearby Native American painting of a mythical bird, called the Piasa Bird, which was painted on the bluffs high above the Mississippi River. Chautauqua is located between Elsah and Grafton in Jersey County. Today, it is bordered by and has access from the Great River Road (Illinois Route 100). It has functioned as a private non-denominational Christian summer resort for over a century.

Quarry Township is one of eleven townships in Jersey County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2010 census, its population was 1,174 and it contained 610 housing units.