Syndicate Block

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.

From the record

“The Syndicate Block is a historic building located in La Porte City, Iowa, United States. A group of real estate investors known as the La Porte Improvement Company was responsible for the construction of this commercial block.”
Wikipedia article Syndicate Block (La Porte City, Iowa), CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 51 National Register listings published here for Black Hawk County · listed in 2005 · category: Building.

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

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 5 buildingss as contributing to the listing.
Address. 206,208,210,212 and 216 Main St., La Porte City, 50651
When was it listed? December 2005
Category. building
Township. Big Creek township
Architectural style. Victorian architecture
National Register reference number. 05001429 - 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.

Mines and quarries near this property

4 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 4 workings within 5 miles of Syndicate Block: 2 past producers, 2 producers. 2 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
Froning Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Bagenstos Sand & Gravel Pit & Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Tom Zeien Sand and Gravel	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Unknown	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Black Hawk County

Storms near this property

28 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names La Porte City, the town this property stands in, in 28 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 14 thunderstorm wind, 6 hail, 5 heavy rain, 1 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.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
June 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	La Porte City	$300,000	no account filed
June 1999	Flash Flood	La Porte City	$150,000	no account filed
April 2001	Tornado (F1)	La Porte City	$125,000	Tornado with intermittent track over open country.
April 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	La Porte City	$100,000	no account filed
June 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	La Porte City	$75,000	Aluminum machine shed was ripped off its foundation and blown anticyclonically north and east, destroying it. Debris from the shed continued in an anticyclonic path and was blown southward and wrapped into a grove of trees 100 feet to the east of the original location of the shed. Door from the machine shed was blown 15 feet into a neighboring corn field. Cattle barn 120 feet to the west was shifted south by 15 feet.
July 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	La Porte City	$50,000	no account filed
April 2000	Hail	La Porte City	$40,000	no account filed
May 2008	Flood	La Porte City	$25,000	Water was over Highway 218 near La Porte City.
April 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	La Porte City	$25,000	no account filed
April 2000	Hail	La Porte City	$20,000	no account filed
June 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	La Porte City	$10,000	no account filed
June 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	La Porte City	$5,000	The Black Hawk County EM reported tree and crop damage.
September 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	La Porte City	$5,000	Tree branches of 8 to 10 inches in diameter were blown down, blocking the road at Iowa and Sycamore. Reported by KWWL TV.
July 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	La Porte City	$5,000	Thunderstorms formed along a stationary frontal boundary across Iowa. Although they were widespread, there was little in the way of severe weather associated with them. One inch diameter IOWA Cont'd hail was reported on the south side of Waterloo. High winds were also reported in the area. Northeast of La Porte City saw high winds. A grove of maple trees, 20 in all, was downed by the high winds. The average diameter of the trees was about one foot. The storms produced heavy rainfall. A small area of east central Tama County into west central Benton County received very heavy rainfall. Three to six inches of rain fell in a 3 hour period in that area. A check with officials in the county indicated there was no significant flooding from the rains however.
July 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	La Porte City	$5,000	no account filed
July 2007	Hail	La Porte City	$3,000	no account filed
July 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	La Porte City	$2,000	no account filed
August 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	La Porte City	-	Measured by a personal weather station. Reports of trees down in town as well.
June 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	La Porte City	-	Wind gust report from personal weather station.
May 2024	Hail	La Porte City	-	Hail broke windshield of car. Strong wind and heavy rain at the time.
July 2024	Hail	La Porte City	-	Relayed by broadcast media of 1-inch hail.
November 2022	Heavy Rain	La Porte City	-	A 24 hour rain total of 2.14 inches.
June 2020	Heavy Rain	La Porte City	-	Personal weather station recorded 4.23 inches of rainfall over the last 24 hours.
June 2020	Heavy Rain	La Porte City	-	Public weather station recorded 4.23 inches of rainfall over the last 24 hours.
June 2020	Heavy Rain	La Porte City	-	Personal weather station reported a 24 hour rain total of 3.92 inches.
June 2020	Heavy Rain	La Porte City	-	Mesonet station reported a 24 hour rain total of 5.94 inches thus far. Still raining at time of report.
September 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	La Porte City	-	Trained spotter reported estimated 60 mph wind gusts just northwest of La Porte City on Highway 218 near Eagle Road.
June 2017	Hail	La Porte City	-	Public reported quarter sized hail via social media.

Every storm recorded in Black Hawk 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
Clement B. Gingrich House	0.1 miles	1996
La Porte City Station	0.1 miles	1979
LaPorte City Town Hall and Fire Station	0.1 miles	1977
Chapple and Young Block	0.1 miles	2002
Dr. Jesse Wasson Building	0.1 miles	1999
John N. and Mary McQuilken House	0.2 miles	1994

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 05001429 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Black Hawk County	All 51 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.
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.