Gilchrist House

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

From the record

“The Gilchrist House was a historic farmhouse near Cordova in Walker County, Alabama. Built when Alabama was still a part of the Mississippi Territory, it was considered by architectural scholars as one of the older surviving houses in Alabama and the oldest structure in the central and western area of the state.”
Wikipedia article Gilchrist House (Cordova, Alabama), CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 8 National Register listings published here for Walker County · listed in 1972 · category: Building.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service · the Wikipedia article

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. 12 mi. SW of Cordova on Pleasantfield-Evansbridge Rd., Cordova, 35579
When was it listed? March 1972
Category. building
Census division. Oakman
National Register reference number. 72000188 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

214 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 214 fires within 5 miles of Gilchrist House between 1994 and 2019, burning about 2,701 acres in total. 2 started naturally. 102 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Arson/incendiarism	102
Debris and open burning	51
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	42
Recreation and ceremony	8
Equipment and vehicle use	6
Natural	2
Misuse of fire by a minor	1
Smoking	1
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
7 September 2010	Debris and open burning	5.0 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
6 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2.0 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	20160906-9
6 September 2010	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
6 September 1999	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
5 September 2010	Arson/incendiarism	9.0 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
5 September 1999	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
4 September 1999	Arson/incendiarism	48 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
30 September 2006	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named

Every fire recorded in Walker County

Storms near this property

29 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Cordova, the town this property stands in, in 29 storm reports between 1997 and 2026: 16 thunderstorm wind, 10 hail, 2 flash flood, 1 tornado. The reports record 2 injuries. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
July 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Cordova	2 hurt, $50,000	A diseased tree was blown over and onto a house. Two people inside were injured, and were treated and released from a nearby hospital. One person suffered a broken arm and collarbone, while the other sustained minor injuries. Time of occurrence was estimated.
May 2009	Tornado (EF1)	Cordova	$260,000	The tornado touched down on the west side of Cordova along South Street. It then moved east-northeastward through the city of Cordova, and lifted shortly after it crossed near the intersection of Disney Street and Mass Avenue, near Cane Creek. Numerous trees were snapped off or were uprooted along the path. At least 15 homes were damaged by the fallen trees. One of the trees fell on a train and damaged some of the cars but the train did not derail.
May 2009	Thunderstorm Wind	Cordova	$20,000	At least two vehicles were flipped on future I-22, near the Cordova/Parrish exit.
April 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Cordova	$10,000	A tree fell down on a car and power lines were downed.
May 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Cordova	$5,000	Four trees were blown down within the city limits of Cordova, in the eastern part of the county, requiring clean up.
May 2003	Hail	Cordova	$5,000	no account filed
July 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Cordova	$3,000	Multiple trees were blown down between Lynns Park and Cordova, along River Road.
July 2001	Flash Flood	Cordova	$3,000	Several roads were covered with water and temporarily impassable in and around the city of Cordova.
March 2000	Hail	Cordova	$3,000	Quarter size hail fell in Cordova.
May 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Cordova	$3,000	no account filed
September 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Cordova	$2,000	Trees and powerlines were reported down in and around Cordova.
April 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Cordova	$2,000	Trees and power lines were blown down in and around Cordova.
September 2009	Flash Flood	Cordova	$2,000	Several roads in the city of Cordova had to be closed due to flooding.
February 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Cordova	$2,000	Several trees were blown down in Cordova.
April 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Cordova	$2,000	no account filed
April 2000	Hail	Cordova	$2,000	no account filed
August 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Cordova	$1,000	A tree was knocked down onto powerlines in Cordova.
March 2026	Thunderstorm Wind	Cordova	-	Trees were downed in the Cordova area.
June 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Cordova	-	Several trees uprooted along Twin Pines Road.
March 2017	Hail	Cordova	-	Quarter size hail along I-22 in the town of Cordorva.
June 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Cordova	-	Several trees uprooted in the town of Cordova.
February 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Cordova	-	Several trees were blown down near the intersection of Highway 78 and Evans Rd.
November 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Cordova	-	A car was blown off the road by winds estimated around 60 mph, at the Cordova exit on future Interstate 22.
March 2005	Hail	Cordova	-	Ham Radio operators reported nickel size hail in and around Cordova.
April 2012	Hail	Cordova	-	no account filed
April 2012	Hail	Cordova	-	no account filed
April 2011	Hail	Cordova	-	no account filed
April 2010	Hail	Cordova	-	no account filed
December 2008	Hail	Cordova	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Walker County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

1 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Photograph	Property	Distance	Listed
	Stephenson House	5.9 miles	1978

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 72000188 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Walker County	All 8 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.