Emerson Hough Elementary School

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.

From the record

“Emerson Hough Elementary School is a historic complex located in Newton, Iowa, United States. It was the first school in the state to employ the Platoon system of education where students spent half of their day studying fundamental subjects and the other half studying specialty subjects like art.”
Wikipedia article Emerson Hough Elementary School, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 16 National Register listings published here for Jasper County · listed in 2002 · 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.
Address. 700 N. 4th Ave. E, Newton, 50208
When was it listed? October 2002
Category. building
Also known as. Public Schools for Iowa: Growth and Change MPS
Township. Newton township
Architectural style. Renaissance Revival architecture
National Register reference number. 02001232 - 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 2009

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 1 fire within 5 miles of Emerson Hough Elementary School in 2009, burning about 50 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	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
3 April 2009	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	50 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named

Every fire recorded in Jasper County

Mines and quarries near this property

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Emerson Hough Elementary School: 1 past producer. 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
	Unknown	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Jasper County

Storms near this property

60 of 120 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Newton, the town this property stands in, in 120 storm reports between 1994 and 2024: 50 hail, 38 heavy rain, 20 thunderstorm wind, 5 tornado. 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
July 2003	Hail	Newton	$500,000	no account filed
July 2003	Hail	Newton	$500,000	no account filed
July 2003	Hail	Newton	$200,000	no account filed
June 2012	Hail	Newton	$100,000	no account filed
July 2003	Hail	Newton	$100,000	no account filed
June 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Newton	$60,000	no account filed
June 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Newton	$50,000	Large tree limbs down around town with homes damaged.
May 2000	Hail	Newton	$50,000	no account filed
June 1998	Flood	Newton	$50,000	no account filed
June 1998	Flood	Newton	$50,000	no account filed
May 1996	Flood	Newton	$50,000	no account filed
June 2008	Tornado (EF0)	Newton	$25,000	Roofs off of outbuildings along with tree damage.
July 2003	Hail	Newton	$25,000	no account filed
July 2003	Hail	Newton	$25,000	no account filed
May 2019	Hail	Newton	$20,000	Trained spotter reported half dollar sized hail, via social media.
July 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Newton	$20,000	no account filed
September 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Newton	$15,000	no account filed
July 2000	Lightning	Newton	$12,000	no account filed
September 2012	Hail	Newton	$10,000	Public reported nickel to quarter size hail in downtown Newton.
April 2003	Hail	Newton	$10,000	no account filed
April 2003	Hail	Newton	$10,000	no account filed
June 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Newton	$10,000	no account filed
July 2003	Hail	Newton	$10,000	no account filed
May 2000	Hail	Newton	$10,000	no account filed
August 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Newton	$10,000	no account filed
May 2000	Hail	Newton	$8,000	no account filed
November 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Newton	$5,000	Trained spotter reported estimated wind gusts of 65 mph. Damage included a flag ripped off the pole and the door of a business ripped open.
June 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Newton	$5,000	Tree damage occurred in the town of Newton.
May 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Newton	$5,000	Newton AWOS reported winds gusts of 51 kts at 1034 PM.
May 2007	Hail	Newton	$5,000	no account filed
June 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Newton	$5,000	no account filed
July 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Newton	$5,000	no account filed
June 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Newton	$5,000	no account filed
June 2005	Hail	Newton	$5,000	no account filed
April 2003	Hail	Newton	$5,000	no account filed
July 2003	Hail	Newton	$5,000	no account filed
May 2001	Hail	Newton	$5,000	no account filed
May 2001	Hail	Newton	$5,000	no account filed
June 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Newton	$5,000	no account filed
June 1997	Hail	Newton	$5,000	no account filed
July 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Newton	$5,000	no account filed
May 2005	Hail	Newton	$3,000	no account filed
April 2002	Hail	Newton	$3,000	no account filed
May 2000	Hail	Newton	$3,000	no account filed
June 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Newton	$3,000	no account filed
March 2006	Hail	Newton	$2,000	no account filed
June 2005	Hail	Newton	$2,000	no account filed
April 2004	Hail	Newton	$2,000	no account filed
July 2003	Hail	Newton	$2,000	no account filed
June 2001	Hail	Newton	$2,000	no account filed
May 2000	Hail	Newton	$2,000	no account filed
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Newton	$1,000	Report received from a KCCI schoolnet site.
August 2009	Hail	Newton	$1,000	no account filed
June 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Newton	$1,000	no account filed
June 2000	Lightning	Newton	$1,000	no account filed
May 2024	Flash Flood	Newton	-	Considerable flooding ongoing in trailer park.
May 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Newton	-	Social media report of tree that is partially down.
June 2024	Tornado (EFU)	Newton	-	This tornado was observed by several individuals and remained in rural cropland. No damage indicators were impacted, hence the EFU rating.
May 2023	Hail	Newton	-	Image received via social media.
May 2023	Hail	Newton	-	Image received via social media. Timing based on radar.

Every storm recorded in Jasper 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.

Property	Distance	Listed
First Avenue East Historic District	0.3 miles	2020
August H. Bergman House	0.3 miles	1989
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church	0.3 miles	1977
Thomas Arthur House	0.3 miles	1982
Jasper County Courthouse	0.5 miles	1981
Newton Downtown Historic District	0.5 miles	2014

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 02001232 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Jasper County	All 16 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.