Willis S. Blatchley House

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. 10 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1943.

From the record

“Blatchley House is a national historic site located at 232 Lee Street, Dunedin, Florida in Pinellas County. It was the house on the American entomologist, malacologist and geologist Willis Blatchley.”
Wikipedia article Willis S. Blatchley House, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 72 National Register listings published here for Pinellas County · listed in 2009 · category: Building.

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.
Listed as. Blatchley, Willis S., House - the National Register files a house under its owner's surname.
Address. 232 Lee St., Dunedin, 34698
When was it listed? September 2009
Category. building
Census division. Clearwater
National Register reference number. 09000747 - 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.

Then and now

1943 to 1998

The ground this property stands on, surveyed 55 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet covering Willis S. Blatchley House, surveyed 1998

Topographic sheet covering Willis S. Blatchley House, surveyed 1943

Fires near this property

11 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 11 fires within 5 miles of Willis S. Blatchley House between 1993 and 2017, burning about 45 acres in total. None started naturally. 3 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	3
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	3
Misuse of fire by a minor	2
Railroad operations and maintenance	1
Equipment and vehicle use	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
30 May 2007	Misuse of fire by a minor	3.0 acres	Florida Forest Service	52 LK ST.GEORGE
24 May 1993	Arson/incendiarism	7.0 acres	Florida Forest Service	not named
21 May 2004	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Florida Forest Service	SUBSTATION
11 May 1993	Equipment and vehicle use	15 acres	Florida Forest Service	not named
5 April 2006	Misuse of fire by a minor	1.0 acres	Florida Forest Service	52 MISSOURI TRAIL
12 March 2006	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Florida Forest Service	52 LANDMARK FIRE
27 February 2001	Railroad operations and maintenance	3.0 acres	Florida Forest Service	not named
18 February 2013	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Florida Forest Service	MOCCASIN LAKE (52)

Every fire recorded in Pinellas County

Storms near this property

8 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Dunedin, the town this property stands in, in 8 storm reports between 1997 and 2017: 3 lightning, 1 waterspout, 1 flood, 1 hail. The reports record 4 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
June 2000	Lightning	Dunedin	3 hurt	Pinellas County Fire Rescue reported that a lightning surge travelled through phone lines and injured three people at the Neilson Media Research Center in Dunedin.
July 1998	Lightning	Dunedin	1 hurt, $20,000	Lightning struck a building and injured a 44 year-old firefighter while indoors near the intersection of U.S. Highway 19 and Republic Drive. The firefighter suffered muscle and nerve damage in his right arm and shoulder from the lightning shock. The lightning injury occurred while the firefighter was holding open an elevator door when lightning struck and travelled through the elevator shaft of the building. The lightning also damaged electrical equipment within the building.
February 1998	Flood	Dunedin	$20,000	no account filed
July 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Dunedin	$2,000	Thunderstorm winds downed two large trees and several large branches along Mira Vista Drive near Alternate U.S. Highway 19 in Dunedin.
July 2017	Lightning	Dunedin	-	Pinellas County 911 reported that a lightning strike caused a fire in the attic of an apartment complex in Dunedin, severely damaging two of the units. Three fire fighters were injured while attempting to put out the fire.
May 2015	Heavy Rain	Dunedin	-	Pinellas County Emergency Management relayed a report of a roof to an apartment building that collapsed under the weight of heavy rain pooling on the roof. The roof was under construction at the time of the incident.
July 1999	Hail	Dunedin	-	Quarter sized hail was reported on Mira Vista Drive near Alternate U.S. Highway 19 by a Hillsborough County Emergency Coordinator.
September 1997	Waterspout	Dunedin	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Pinellas County

Maps showing this location

10 surveys

United States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.

1943 USGS Dunedin quadrangle1:24000 - 2 printings
1943 USGS Dunedin quadrangle1:31680
1955 USGS Plant City quadrangle1:250000 - 3 printings
1955 USGS Tarpon Springs quadrangle1:250000 - 3 printings
1958 USGS Plant City quadrangle1:250000
1959 USGS Plant City quadrangle1:250000
1964 USGS Plant City quadrangle1:250000
1974 USGS Dunedin quadrangle1:24000 - 3 printings
1978 USGS Tarpon Springs quadrangle1:100000
1998 USGS Dunedin quadrangle1:24000

Listed places nearby

6 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.

Property	Distance	Listed
Andrews Memorial Chapel	0.7 miles	1972
J. O. Douglas House	0.7 miles	1979
Dunedin Isles Golf Club Golf Course	1.8 miles	2014
House at 827 Mandalay Avenue	2.9 miles	2021
North Ward School	3.2 miles	2021
Mount Olive African Methodist Episcopal Church	3.6 miles	2000

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 09000747 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Pinellas County	All 72 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.