BlockBefore
Photograph of West Liberty Commercial Historic District
Photograph by Billwhittaker, CC BY-SA 3.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

West Liberty Commercial Historic District

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.

From the record

“The West Liberty Commercial Historic District in West Liberty, Iowa, United States, is a historic district that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. At that time, it included 41 contributing buildings, six other contributing structures, and eight non-contributing buildings.”

Wikipedia article West Liberty Commercial Historic District, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 40 National Register listings published here for Muscatine County · listed in 2002 · category: District.

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

The listing

  • Address. Bounded by 4th St., Railroad Tracks, Clay and Spencer Sts., West Liberty, 52776
  • When was it listed? September 2002
  • Category. district
  • Also known as. Iowa's Main Street Commercial Architecture MPS
  • Township. Wapsinonoc township
  • National Register reference number. 02001035 - 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

1 since 2012

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 1 fire within 5 miles of West Liberty Commercial Historic District in 2012, burning about 400 acres in total. None 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
Debris and open burning1

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

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
17 March 2012Debris and open burning400 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named

Every fire recorded in Muscatine County

Storms near this property

27 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names West Liberty, the town this property stands in, in 27 storm reports between 1995 and 2026: 12 thunderstorm wind, 8 hail, 4 tornado, 1 lightning. The reports record 1 injury. 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
June 1997Thunderstorm WindWest Liberty1 hurt, $15,000An eleven year old girl was injured by flying glass when a tree struck her home. The tree struck the house and smashed a window as the girl and her parents were running to the basement for shelter. The family also lost numerous trees and one grain bin.
August 2009FloodWest Liberty$500,000no account filed
April 2008Tornado (EF2)West Liberty$200,000This tornado touched down 5.2 miles northeast of Nichols and tracked to the northeast before lifting 2 miles west of Moscow. The EF2 tornado was on the ground for 6.5 miles, had maximum winds to 115 mph and was 150 yards wide. There were 5 farmsteads that were hit by the tornado, but no injuries were reported. Siding and shingles of two homes were peeled off. Outbuildings were damaged, a machine shed and grain bin destroyed, and a wooden swingset toppled. Utility poles were snapped or blown down, while several trees were snapped or uprooted.
May 2011Thunderstorm WindWest Liberty$25,000Wind gusts estimated to be 70 mph destroyed a garage and caused extensive tree damage at a home near Highway 70 and 130th Street just southeast of West Liberty, IA around 520 pm CDT May 22.
May 2011Thunderstorm WindWest Liberty$25,000Wind gusts estimated to be 70 mph blew a roof off of a barn near West Liberty, IA at 530 pm CDT May 24.
June 2010Flash FloodWest Liberty$10,000Heavy rains resulted in flash flooding of parts of Highway 6 between West Liberty, IA and Atalissa, IA as well as County Road F58 between Durant, IA and Stockton, IA during the morning of June 23. Portions of these roads were closed due to the flooding.
April 2001Thunderstorm WindWest Liberty$10,000Thunderstorm winds destroyed a large shed. Reported in local newspaper. Time is estimated.
July 1995Tornado (F0)West Liberty$5,000no account filed
April 2006HailWest Liberty$2,000no account filed
May 2004Thunderstorm WindWest Liberty$2,000no account filed
August 2007LightningWest Liberty$500Lightning struck a tree at the First Church United in West Liberty, IA on August 8th. Time estimated. Electricity and phone services were lost. One computer was damaged at the church.
April 2026Tornado (EF0)West Liberty-An EF0 tornado lofted a corn crib, snapped trees, bent an auger, and partially destroyed a roof on a farm outbuilding. This tornado began in Johnson County, Iowa.
May 2024Thunderstorm WindWest Liberty-Numerous trees and branches down across West Liberty, Iowa.
April 2024Thunderstorm WindWest Liberty-County Dispatch relayed a report of a large tree down on a vehicle.
May 2023Tornado (EF1)West Liberty-This tornado developed just NNW of West Liberty and tracked across the far northeast part of town before eventually crossing over U.S. Highway 6 between West Liberty and Atalissa, and diminishing shortly after. The extent of the damage was mainly to outbuildings, with several walls and roofs collapsed and in some cases blown across a downstream field. A few large trees and two utility poles were also snapped. A large metal batting cage anchored into concrete was twisted and bent sharply at its base.
May 2023HailWest Liberty-Report from Mping.
May 2023HailWest Liberty-Report from Mping.
July 2018Thunderstorm WindWest Liberty-A public report was received via social media of 5 to 6 inch in diameter tree limbs down. The time was estimated by radar.
February 2017HailWest Liberty-A spotter reported quarter size hail.
June 2010Thunderstorm WindWest Liberty-Severe thunderstorm winds downed large trees in West Liberty.
July 2002Thunderstorm WindWest Liberty-Large tree blown down on a car. The car was unoccupied.
May 2024Thunderstorm WindWest Liberty-no account filed
April 2006HailWest Liberty-no account filed
March 2005HailWest Liberty-no account filed
May 2000HailWest Liberty-no account filed
June 1999HailWest Liberty-no account filed
June 1998Thunderstorm WindWest Liberty-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Muscatine 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

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.

Photograph PropertyDistance Listed
West Liberty Fairgrounds Historic District0.3 miles2015
George H. and Loretta Ward House0.4 miles1997
Bridge near West Liberty3.1 miles1998
Beers and St. John Company Coach Inn5.4 miles2016
Samuel Nichols House6.4 miles1978
Nichols, Benjamin F. and Susan M. (Jenkins), House6.4 miles2023

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 02001035 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Muscatine CountyAll 40 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.