Bell Mercantile

Built in 1910. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.

From the record

“The Bell Mercantile, a two-story store building at 101-111 Moffat Avenue in Oak Creek, Colorado, was built in 1910 by Samuel and Edward Bell on their ranch property. It served as a company store to a "vast number of coal miners" in the area, as coal mines paid employees through the store.”
Wikipedia article Bell Mercantile, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 26 National Register listings published here for Routt County · listed in 1990 · category: Building · built in 1910.

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

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. 101--111 Moffat Ave., Oak Creek, 80467
When was it listed? June 1990
Category. building
Census division. Oak Creek
When was it built? 1910
National Register reference number. 90000871 - 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

5 since 2000

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 5 fires within 5 miles of Bell Mercantile between 2000 and 2020, burning about 11 acres in total. 3 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
Natural	3
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1
Debris and open burning	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
26 August 2008	Natural	under an acre	Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests, Thunder Basin National Grassland	LOWRY
10 August 2000	Natural	5.0 acres	Northwest District, Craig	ENERGY
1 June 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Oak Creek Fire Protection District	N/A
11 May 2018	Debris and open burning	5.0 acres	Steamboat Springs Fire Department	UNKNOWN
3 October 2010	Natural	1.0 acres	Northwest District, Craig	TROUT

Every fire recorded in Routt County

Mines and quarries near this property

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Bell Mercantile: 2 past producers. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. 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
	Hayden #1	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
	Unknown Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Routt County

Storms near this property

9 since 2000

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Oak Creek, the town this property stands in, in 9 storm reports between 2000 and 2011: 4 hail, 2 wildfire, 2 heavy rain, 1 thunderstorm wind. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. 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
August 2011	Hail	Oak Creek	$50,000	Hail up to the size of golf balls was reported in Oak Creek.
June 2005	Hail	Oak Creek	$5,000	no account filed
July 2005	Heavy Rain	Oak Creek	$5,000	no account filed
July 2007	Heavy Rain	Oak Creek	-	A thunderstorm produced .90 inches of rain in 45 minutes in downtown Oak Creek.
July 2005	Hail	Oak Creek	-	no account filed
May 2002	Hail	Oak Creek	-	no account filed
June 2000	Wildfire	Oak Creek	-	no account filed
August 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Oak Creek	-	no account filed
August 2000	Wildfire	Oak Creek	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Routt 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
	Foidel Canyon School	7.6 miles	1983

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 90000871 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Routt County	All 26 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.