Montezuma Downtown Historic District

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.

From the record

“The Montezuma Downtown Historic District is a nationally recognized historic district located in Montezuma, Iowa, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.”
Wikipedia article Montezuma Downtown Historic District, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 26 National Register listings published here for Poweshiek County · listed in 2012 · category: District.

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

The listing

Address. Roughly along 3rd, 4th, Main & Liberty Sts. around courthouse square, Montezuma, 50171
When was it listed? May 2012
Category. district
Also known as. Iowa's Main Street Commercial Architecture MPS
Township. Jackson township
National Register reference number. 12000131 - 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

10 since 2006

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 10 fires within 5 miles of Montezuma Downtown Historic District between 2006 and 2017, burning about 101 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 burning	9
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
8 June 2006	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.5 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
23 March 2014	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
23 March 2014	Debris and open burning	6.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
21 March 2014	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
20 March 2014	Debris and open burning	80 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
21 February 2017	Debris and open burning	3.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
19 February 2017	Debris and open burning	2.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
18 February 2017	Debris and open burning	5.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named

Every fire recorded in Poweshiek County

Storms near this property

60 of 68 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Montezuma, the town this property stands in, in 68 storm reports between 1995 and 2024: 31 thunderstorm wind, 21 heavy rain, 12 hail, 1 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 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$200,000	no account filed
June 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$50,000	no account filed
May 1996	Flood	Montezuma	$50,000	no account filed
June 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$40,000	no account filed
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$35,000	no account filed
November 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$30,000	no account filed
June 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$27,000	no account filed
June 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$25,000	no account filed
August 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$15,000	no account filed
September 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$10,000	A trained spotter measured this wind gust and reported tree limb damage.
July 2008	Lightning	Montezuma	$10,000	no account filed
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$10,000	no account filed
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$10,000	no account filed
July 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$10,000	no account filed
July 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$10,000	no account filed
June 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$10,000	no account filed
June 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$10,000	no account filed
September 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$5,000	Poweshiek County Rd. Department reports a power pole blown down.
June 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$5,000	Peak wind gust was measured by a weather station at the water treatment plant.
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$5,000	Measured gust by KCCI schoolnet site.
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$5,000	no account filed
June 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$5,000	no account filed
August 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$5,000	no account filed
July 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$5,000	no account filed
June 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$3,000	no account filed
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$3,000	no account filed
May 2006	Hail	Montezuma	$3,000	no account filed
May 2002	Hail	Montezuma	$3,000	no account filed
May 2011	Hail	Montezuma	$2,000	Quarter size hail, hail was in a disk-like shape.
May 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$2,000	no account filed
June 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$2,000	no account filed
April 2011	Hail	Montezuma	$1,000	Hail was reported by a KCCI television viewer.
April 2008	Hail	Montezuma	$1,000	KCCI TV reported hail up to nickel size covering a deck.
July 2008	Hail	Montezuma	$1,000	no account filed
June 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$1,000	no account filed
July 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	-	Tree on house, with time of occurrence estimated from radar.
May 2023	Hail	Montezuma	-	Report via social media.
May 2023	Hail	Montezuma	-	Reported 56mph winds with nickel to quarter sized hail.
May 2023	Hail	Montezuma	-	Delayed report, time estimated by radar.
April 2022	Heavy Rain	Montezuma	-	Storm total of 3.03 inches of rain. Light rain continues.
November 2022	Heavy Rain	Montezuma	-	A 24 hour rain total of 2.74 inches.
August 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	-	Small tree limbs down. Gust measured by personal weather station. Time estimated via radar.
August 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	-	Storm chaser reports trees down and damage to outbuildings. Time estimated via radar.
August 2021	Heavy Rain	Montezuma	-	Storm total rainfall of 2.13 inches.
July 2021	Heavy Rain	Montezuma	-	A 24 hour rain total of 2.24 inches.
August 2021	Heavy Rain	Montezuma	-	A 24 hour rainfall of 3.45 inches.
September 2019	Hail	Montezuma	-	WHO TV relayed public reports of quarter sized hail near Montezuma.
August 2019	Heavy Rain	Montezuma	-	Trained spotter reported heavy rainfall of 2.15 inches. Beginning time estimated from radar.
August 2019	Heavy Rain	Montezuma	-	Coop observer recorded heavy rainfall of 2.17 inches over the last 24 hours.
September 2018	Heavy Rain	Montezuma	-	Trained spotter reported heavy rainfall of 6.48 inches for the last 24 hour period. Due to limitations in the database entry, beginning time coded as midnight CST.
September 2018	Heavy Rain	Montezuma	-	Coop observer recorded heavy rainfall of 5.16 inches over the last 24 hours.
May 2017	Heavy Rain	Montezuma	-	Coop observer reported 24 hour rainfall total of 1.42 inches.
August 2016	Heavy Rain	Montezuma	-	Coop observer recorded heavy rainfall of 2.72 inches over the last 24 hours.
November 2016	Funnel Cloud	Montezuma	-	Cedar Falls Dispatch relayed a report from an officer of a funnel cloud SW of his position. At the time of the report, the officer was just south of I-80 on Highway 21 looking to the SW. Location estimated based on radar.
August 2015	Heavy Rain	Montezuma	-	Coop observer reported heavy rainfall of 4.20 inches over the last 24 hours.
August 2015	Heavy Rain	Montezuma	-	Public reported heavy rainfall of 4.80 inches for a 24 hour storm total.
August 2015	Heavy Rain	Montezuma	-	Public reported heavy rainfall of 4.80 inches for storm total.
November 2015	Heavy Rain	Montezuma	-	Coop observer reported heavy rainfall of 1.68 inches over the last 24 hours.
December 2015	Heavy Rain	Montezuma	-	Coop observer reported heavy rainfall of 3.68 inches over the last 48 hours/storm total so far.
December 2015	Heavy Rain	Montezuma	-	Public reported heavy rainfall of 3.80 inches storm total so far.

Every storm recorded in Poweshiek 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

2 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	Property	Distance	Listed
	Poweshiek County Courthouse	0.1 miles	1981
	New Carroll House Hotel	0.3 miles	1979

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 12000131 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Poweshiek County	All 26 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.