Big Creek Schoolhouse

Built in 1863 (Greek Revival architecture). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.

From the record

“The Big Creek Schoolhouse, also known as Polk City Schoolhouse and Polk City City Hall, is a historic building located in Polk City, Iowa, United States. It was built in 1863 when the community was known as Big Creek.”
Wikipedia article Big Creek Schoolhouse, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 208 National Register listings published here for Polk County · listed in 2004 · category: Building · built in 1863, Greek Revival architecture.

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. 112 3rd St., Polk City, 50226
When was it listed? August 2004
Category. building
Township. Madison township
When was it built? 1863
Architectural style. Greek Revival architecture
National Register reference number. 04000816 - 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

14 since 2006

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 14 fires within 5 miles of Big Creek Schoolhouse between 2006 and 2017, burning about 44 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	8
Equipment and vehicle use	4
Debris and open burning	2

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 August 2013	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	10 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
8 July 2015	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
30 July 2017	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
5 June 2007	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
25 June 2006	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
17 June 2006	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
7 May 2017	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
19 May 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	CAMP DODGE

Every fire recorded in Polk County

Mines and quarries near this property

5 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 5 workings within 5 miles of Big Creek Schoolhouse: 5 past producers. 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.

Site	Commodity	Status
Bradshaw Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Jester Park Pits	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Lehman Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Long Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Unknown	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Polk County

Storms near this property

60 of 88 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Polk City, the town this property stands in, in 88 storm reports between 1993 and 2024: 32 thunderstorm wind, 31 heavy rain, 18 hail, 3 flash flood. 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.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
May 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	1 hurt	Ten inch diameter tree branches blown down in Polk City.
July 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	$150,000	A 10 by 34 foot section of a newly constructed house roof was blown off and trusses snapped in half. Several 18 to 24 foot diameter trees were snapped or topped. Surrounding corn fields were mostly flattened.
March 2019	Flood	Polk City	$100,000	Bike trail bridge over Beaver Creek damaged/destroyed from ice and flooding.
July 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	$100,000	Corrugated steel roof from a house was ripped off and thrown approximately 110 meters. A section of the roof impaled the side of a neighboring house, with part of the metal roof sticking into the living room of the house.
June 2007	Flash Flood	Polk City	$100,000	no account filed
September 2018	Flash Flood	Polk City	$50,000	Public stated that Highway 17 northbound is underwater and closed approximately 1 mile north of Granger.
June 2001	Hail	Polk City	$50,000	no account filed
May 1993	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	$50,000	no account filed
April 2022	Tornado (EF1)	Polk City	$25,000	QLCS system was passing through central Iowa and produced a series of three tornadoes in close proximity to one another between the Des Moines metro area and Ames. This was the first tornado of the group and also the strongest. It touched down south of Madrid, Iowa and moved quickly northeast. It encountered a farmstead shortly after forming snapping tree trunks and flipping a 5th wheel camper producing EF1 damage. The tornado then remained in open farmland and crossed into Boone County.
May 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	$25,000	no account filed
May 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	$25,000	no account filed
May 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	$25,000	no account filed
June 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	$25,000	no account filed
May 2000	Hail	Polk City	$25,000	no account filed
April 2001	Hail	Polk City	$15,000	no account filed
June 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	$10,000	Off duty NWS employee reports 4 inch tree limbs down in town.
June 2008	Flash Flood	Polk City	$10,000	Report of water over the road on Highway 17 and 122nd ave near the Des Moines River bridge.
May 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	$10,000	no account filed
May 2000	Flood	Polk City	$10,000	no account filed
June 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	$5,000	Wind gust estimated at 65 MPH.
July 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	$5,000	Trees were blown down.
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	$5,000	Winds at the NWS office were measured at 70 MPH with small hail. Winds lasted 5 minutes and were still going on.
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	$5,000	Ten inch diameter trees down.
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	$5,000	Several 10 inch diameter tree limbs down.
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	$5,000	no account filed
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	$5,000	no account filed
June 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	$5,000	no account filed
May 2000	Hail	Polk City	$5,000	no account filed
May 2000	Hail	Polk City	$5,000	no account filed
May 2000	Hail	Polk City	$5,000	no account filed
July 2009	Hail	Polk City	$3,000	no account filed
June 2009	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	$3,000	no account filed
June 2009	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	$3,000	no account filed
May 2000	Hail	Polk City	$3,000	no account filed
July 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	$2,000	A large tree limb was blown down on a fence along with some other damage in the area. A transformer blew out, knocking out power.
July 1995	Hail	Polk City	$2,000	no account filed
May 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	$1,000	From a Schoolnet site.
June 2009	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	$1,000	no account filed
July 2008	Hail	Polk City	$1,000	no account filed
May 2000	Hail	Polk City	$1,000	no account filed
May 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	-	Snapped Tree branches, roughly 4 to 5 inches in diameter.
May 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	-	Large tree down in Polk City. Time estimated by radar.
July 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	-	Strong winds with large tree branch down. Time estimated by social media time and radar.
April 2022	Funnel Cloud	Polk City	-	Funnel cloud observed near Saylorville Lake.
April 2022	Heavy Rain	Polk City	-	Storm total of 2.98 inches of rain. Light rain continues.
April 2022	Heavy Rain	Polk City	-	Storm total of 3.41 inches of rain. Rain continues.
August 2022	Heavy Rain	Polk City	-	A 24 hour rainfall total of 2.96 inches.
November 2022	Heavy Rain	Polk City	-	A 24 hour rain total of 2.17 inches.
July 2021	Heavy Rain	Polk City	-	A 24 hour rain total of 2.62 inches.
August 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	-	NWS Employee reports wind gusts near 60 mph in Polk City with branches down.
July 2021	Hail	Polk City	-	Golf ball to egg sized hail at the NWS office in Johnston. Minor damage to vehicles.
July 2020	Heavy Rain	Polk City	-	NWS Des Moines office measured 2.71 inches of rain in 3 hours.
May 2019	Heavy Rain	Polk City	-	CoCoRaHS observer recorded heavy rainfall of 2.45 inches over the last 24 hours.
May 2018	Hail	Polk City	-	Amateur radio operator reported up to penny sized hail from about 4:56 am to 5 am.
May 2018	Heavy Rain	Polk City	-	NWS office recorded heavy rainfall of 1.72 inches over the last 24 hours, including 1.45 inches since 1 am.
July 2018	Heavy Rain	Polk City	-	NWS employee reported heavy rainfall of 5.14 inches. Due to database entry limitation, beginning time coded as midnight CST. Actual estimated start time of 530pm CDT on June 30th.
July 2018	Heavy Rain	Polk City	-	NWS Des Moines recorded heavy rainfall of 3.8 inches over the last 24 hours. Due to database entry limitation, beginning time coded as midnight CST.
July 2018	Heavy Rain	Polk City	-	CoCoRaHS observer recorded heavy rainfall of 5.47 inches over the last 24 hours. Due to database entry limitation, beginning time coded as midnight CST.
September 2018	Heavy Rain	Polk City	-	CocoRaHS observer recorded heavy rainfall of 3.44 inches over the last 24 hours.
March 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Polk City	-	NWS employee estimated 50-60 mph wind gusts at NWS office in Des Moines.

Every storm recorded in Polk 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

4 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
Herrold Bridge	3.8 miles	1998
Camp Dodge Pool District	4.7 miles	1995
Paul J. and Ida Trier House	6.0 miles	1988
Richard L. and Verda M. Alleman Farm Historic District	6.4 miles	2015

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 04000816 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Polk County	All 208 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.