This site was home to Batavia’s first windmill manufacturer, which produced Daniel Halladay’s Standard, the first commercially successful self-governing windmill in the United States.

John Burnham organized the U.S. Wind Engine and Pump Company in Chicago in 1857 to sell Halladay’s windmills, made in Connecticut. In 1863, the Chicago company purchased the Halladay Wind Mill Company and moved its manufacturing equipment to Batavia. In addition to the Halladay Standard windmill, the company produced a wide variety of farm and railroad products.

The U.S. Model F, introduced in 1926, was the last windmill produced by the company, which ultimately was sold to Batavia Metal Products Company Inc. in May 1942 to produce war matériel. The federal government seized the now-bankrupt company in 1951. Fox Valley Ordnance Plant, operated by Standard Spring Steel Company’s Fox Valley Division, manufactured 90-millimeter smoke and chemical shells from 1951 to January 1954.

The federal government sold the property in April 1959 to four partners operating as Batavia Enterprises Inc., which, in 1961, removed the front part of the factory complex to construct Batavia Shopping Plaza. The remaining property was substantially renovated for commercial, industrial, not-for-profit, retail, and professional business use at Tower Business Center (Water Street; since 1991) and Windmill Business Center (Flinn Street; since 2009); as well as Water Street Studios Community Art Center (since November 2008).