Buchanan County Court House

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.

From the record

“Buchanan County Court House in Independence, Iowa, United States was built in 1940. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003 as a part of the PWA-Era County Courthouses of IA Multiple Properties Submission.”
Wikipedia article Buchanan County Courthouse (Iowa), CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 20 National Register listings published here for Buchanan County · listed in 2003 · 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 2 objectss, 1 building, 1 site as contributing to the listing.
Address. 216 5th Ave., 216 5th Ave., 50644
When was it listed? August 2003
Category. building
Also known as. PWA-Era County Courthouses of IA MPS
Township. Washington township
Architectural style. PWA Moderne
National Register reference number. 03000820 - 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

24 since 2006

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 24 fires within 5 miles of Buchanan County Court House between 2006 and 2020, burning about 197 acres in total. None started naturally. 1 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 burning	12
Equipment and vehicle use	5
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	5
Recreation and ceremony	1
Arson/incendiarism	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
31 August 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
8 May 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
29 April 2018	Debris and open burning	30 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
28 April 2015	Debris and open burning	65 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
25 April 2018	Debris and open burning	10 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
23 April 2018	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
23 April 2018	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
22 April 2017	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named

Every fire recorded in Buchanan County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 13 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 13 workings within 5 miles of Buchanan County Court House: 9 past producers, 4 producers. 4 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Brooks Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Miller Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Sells Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Greenley Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Hertzberg Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Miller Sand Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Quality P M Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Unknown	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Unknown	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Unknown	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Buchanan 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
Malek Theatre	0.2 miles	2009
Weins Commercial Building	0.2 miles	1997
Fisher-Plane Commercial Building	0.3 miles	1997
Lee, Captain Daniel S. and Fannie L. (Brooks), House	0.3 miles	2010
Maas Commercial Building	0.3 miles	1998
Munson Building	0.3 miles	1976

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 03000820 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Buchanan County	All 20 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.