Rock Rapids, Iowa

• Open map evidence
• Research guide
• Lyon County

Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.

On the National Register 4 records

• Burlington, Cedar Rapids, and Northern Railroad-Rock Rapids Station, Railroad Track and Bridgelisted 1976
• First Methodist Churchlisted 1978
• Lyon County Courthouselisted 1979
• Melan Bridgelisted 1974

Rock Rapids grew from 2,549 to 2,611 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

• 1955 USGS Sioux Falls quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
• 1958 USGS Sioux Falls quadrangle1:250000
• 1971 USGS Rock Rapids quadrangle1:24000
• 1985 USGS Rock Rapids quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 18 workings within 5 miles of Rock Rapids: 15 past producers, 2 unknowns, 1 producer. 1 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.

Every working recorded in Lyon County

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Rock Rapids in 60 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 27 hail, 17 thunderstorm wind, 11 flood, 3 flash flood. 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.

Every storm recorded in Lyon County

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 460743. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

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.