BlockFrom the record
One of 19 National Register listings published here for Otero County · listed in 2025 · category: Building.
Sources: the National Register database, National Park Service
Swink School
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2025.
The listing
- What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
- Still standing. The Park Service records this property as extant.
- Address. 321 Columbia Ave., Swink, 81077
- When was it listed? March 2025
- Category. building
- Census division. La Junta
- National Register reference number. 100011578 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.
Fires near this property
192 since 1995Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 192 fires within 5 miles of Swink School between 1995 and 2020, burning about 578 acres in total. 5 started naturally. None was 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 |
|---|---|
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 155 |
| Smoking | 12 |
| Debris and open burning | 9 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 9 |
| Natural | 5 |
| Fireworks | 2 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 September 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2.0 acres | La Junta Rural Fire Protection District | UNKNOWN |
| 24 September 2003 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Colorado State Forest Service-State Headquarters | not named |
| 17 September 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | La Junta Rural Fire Protection District | UNKNOWN |
| 1 September 2011 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Colorado State Forest Service-State Headquarters | LA JUNTA |
| 1 September 2003 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Colorado State Forest Service-State Headquarters | not named |
| 8 August 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | La Junta Rural Fire Protection District | UNKNOWN |
| 7 August 2005 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Colorado State Forest Service-State Headquarters | not named |
| 4 August 2015 | Natural | under an acre | La Junta Rural Fire Protection District | UNKNOWN |
Mines and quarries near this property
10 of 19 shownRegional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 19 workings within 5 miles of Swink School: 13 unknowns, 5 occurrences, 1 producer. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Fire Clay (Refractory), Clay. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Where | Site | Commodity | Status | Recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unk | Clay | Unknown | ||
| Unknown | Fire Clay (Refractory) | Producer | Sedimentary | |
| Unk | Stone | Unknown | ||
| Unk | Stone | Unknown | ||
| Unknown | Stone | Occurrence | ||
| La Junta Gravel Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Unknown | ||
| Unk | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Unknown | ||
| Unk | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Unknown | ||
| Unk | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Unknown | ||
| Unk | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Unknown |
Storms near this property
19 since 1996Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Swink, the town this property stands in, in 19 storm reports between 1996 and 2023: 14 hail, 2 flash flood, 1 lightning, 1 thunderstorm wind. The reports record 1 death. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| September 1996 | Lightning | Swink | 1 killed | no account filed |
| September 2001 | Hail | Swink | $10,000 | Severe thunderstorms produced hail up to baseball size in northern Otero County. At Holbrook Reservoir golf ball to baseball size hail killed over 1600 birds. The dead birds include: 1479 pelicans...over 100 acelots...about 50 gulls...24 ducks...and a couple dozen other waterfowl. A few homes in the area also had their windows broken by the large hail. |
| August 2022 | Flash Flood | Swink | - | Flooding over Highway 50 in spots between Reynolds Ave and CR 24. |
| July 2022 | Heavy Rain | Swink | - | Heavy rainfall of 2.22 inches. |
| May 2015 | Flash Flood | Swink | - | The Highway 50 underpass was flooded with around 12 inches of water near Swink. |
| July 2023 | Hail | Swink | - | no account filed |
| July 2023 | Hail | Swink | - | no account filed |
| August 2017 | Hail | Swink | - | no account filed |
| June 2016 | Thunderstorm Wind | Swink | - | no account filed |
| May 2015 | Hail | Swink | - | no account filed |
| September 2012 | Hail | Swink | - | no account filed |
| June 2010 | Hail | Swink | - | no account filed |
| June 2009 | Hail | Swink | - | no account filed |
| May 2008 | Hail | Swink | - | no account filed |
| May 2008 | Hail | Swink | - | no account filed |
| June 2005 | Hail | Swink | - | no account filed |
| May 2005 | Hail | Swink | - | no account filed |
| September 1996 | Hail | Swink | - | no account filed |
| September 1996 | Hail | Swink | - | no account filed |
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
6 within 8 milesOther 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Daniel Sciumbato Grocery Store | 4.5 miles | 1984 |
| Valley View-Hillcrest Cemetery | 4.7 miles | 2024 | |
 | Lincoln School | 4.8 miles | 1978 |
 | Eugene Rourke House | 4.9 miles | 1983 |
 | Dr. Frank Finney House | 4.9 miles | 1984 |
 | Art Building | 5.0 miles | 1996 |
Sources for this property
| National Archives record | The nomination case file for reference 100011578 in Record Group 79. |
| Otero County | All 19 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.
- Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
- 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.