A National Historic Landmark. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
From the record
“The Merchants' National Bank is a historic commercial building located in Grinnell, Iowa. Built in 1914, it is one of a series of small banks designed by Louis Sullivan in the Midwest between 1909 and 1919.”
Wikipedia article Merchants' National Bank, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 26 National Register listings published here for Poweshiek County · listed in 1976 · category: Building · a National Historic Landmark.
National Register reference number.76000804- 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
25 since 2006
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 25 fires within 5 miles of Merchants' National Bank
between 2006 and 2017, burning about 192 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
18
Debris and open burning
7
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Grinnell, the town this property stands in, in 87 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 29 thunderstorm wind, 29 heavy rain, 22 hail, 3 lightning.
The reports record 7 injuries. 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.
Emergency manager reported water over a few gravel roads near Grinnell north of Interstate 80 and other county roads closed near Searsboro due to flooding.
Emergency manager reported damage to utility poles, power lines down including high voltage lines, and debris throughout the city blocking streets. Time estimated from AWOS gusts.
Local newspaper reported at least 15 to 20 trees down across the northern side of Grinnell, some 3 to 4 feet in diameter. Multiple trees fell and damaged building and house roofs. At least 12000 people without power in the area. Delayed report, and time estimated from radar.
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.
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.
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