Laurens Carnegie Free Library

Built in 1910 (Mission Revival architecture). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

From the record

“Laurens Carnegie Free Library is a historic building located in Laurens, Iowa, United States. It was designed by the Des Moines architectural firm of Wetherell and Gage and completed in 1910.”
Wikipedia article Laurens Carnegie Free Library, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 3 National Register listings published here for Pocahontas County · listed in 1974 · category: Building · built in 1910, Mission 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. 263 N. 3rd St., Laurens, 50554
When was it listed? November 1974
Category. building
Township. Swan Lake township
When was it built? 1910
Architectural style. Mission Revival architecture
National Register reference number. 74000804 - 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

9 since 2006

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 9 fires within 5 miles of Laurens Carnegie Free Library between 2006 and 2009, burning about 16 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	9

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
1 June 2006	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
22 May 2006	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	3.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
18 April 2006	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
14 April 2006	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
11 April 2009	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
11 April 2009	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
11 April 2009	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
1 April 2009	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named

Every fire recorded in Pocahontas County

Storms near this property

31 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Laurens, the town this property stands in, in 31 storm reports between 1994 and 2023: 13 hail, 10 thunderstorm wind, 2 flood, 2 heavy rain. 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 2008	Flash Flood	Laurens	$150,000	Extensive flooding stopping travel and water was backing up into basements.
April 2011	Hail	Laurens	$75,000	The public reported baseball size hail and some minor urban flooding.
June 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Laurens	$50,000	no account filed
June 1998	Flood	Laurens	$50,000	no account filed
May 1994	Hail	Laurens	$50,000	no account filed
April 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Laurens	$40,000	An athletic equipment shed and baseball field dugout at the Laurens-Marathon school was destroyed. At least four trees had multiple branches down.
May 2018	Hail	Laurens	$15,000	Public reported golf ball sized hail via social media.
May 2018	Hail	Laurens	$15,000	Public reported large hail up to ping pong ball sized covering the ground.
August 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Laurens	$15,000	Three foot diameter trees and large limbs were blown down.
May 2006	Lightning	Laurens	$15,000	no account filed
August 1995	Hail	Laurens	$15,000	no account filed
August 1995	Hail	Laurens	$15,000	no account filed
April 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Laurens	$10,000	A shed was blown over.
September 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Laurens	$10,000	no account filed
July 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Laurens	$10,000	no account filed
May 2018	Hail	Laurens	$5,000	Public reported half dollar sized hail. The report was relayed via county Sheriff's Office.
March 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Laurens	$5,000	no account filed
August 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Laurens	$5,000	no account filed
May 2001	Hail	Laurens	$5,000	no account filed
May 2001	Hail	Laurens	$3,000	no account filed
June 2001	Hail	Laurens	$3,000	no account filed
August 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Laurens	$2,000	no account filed
June 2001	Hail	Laurens	$1,000	no account filed
May 2023	Flash Flood	Laurens	-	Delayed report of extensive flooding in town. Water up against some homes and businesses in town. Time estimated.
May 2023	Heavy Rain	Laurens	-	A 24 hour total of 6.90 inches of rain, with 3.5 inches of that occurring in the last one hour.
July 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Laurens	-	Several reports of 50 to 60 mph winds and tree damage, some of which came from the mPING application. Time estimated from radar.
September 2009	Funnel Cloud	Laurens	-	Reported by the Iowa State Patrol.
June 2008	Heavy Rain	Laurens	-	Rainfall of 1.5 to 2 inches.
March 2011	Hail	Laurens	-	no account filed
June 2010	Flood	Laurens	-	no account filed
April 2004	Hail	Laurens	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Pocahontas 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.

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 74000804 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Pocahontas County	All 3 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.