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Photograph of LaPorte City Town Hall and Fire Station
Photograph by User:Magicpiano, CC BY-SA 4.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

LaPorte City Town Hall and Fire Station

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.

From the record

“The LaPorte City Town Hall and Fire Station is a historic building located in La Porte City, Iowa, United States. The town hall/fire station portion of the buildings was completed in 1876, five years after the town was organized.”

Wikipedia article LaPorte City Town Hall and Fire Station, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 51 National Register listings published here for Black Hawk County · listed in 1977 · category: Building.

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. 413 Chestnut, La Porte City, 50651
  • When was it listed? May 1977
  • Category. building
  • Township. Big Creek township
  • National Register reference number. 77000496 - 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 LaPorte City Town Hall and Fire Station: 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.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Froning QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer
Bagenstos Sand & Gravel Pit & PlantSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Tom Zeien Sand and GravelSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
UnknownSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
June 1997Thunderstorm WindLa Porte City$300,000no account filed
June 1999Flash FloodLa Porte City$150,000no account filed
April 2001Tornado (F1)La Porte City$125,000Tornado with intermittent track over open country.
April 2001Thunderstorm WindLa Porte City$100,000no account filed
June 2011Thunderstorm WindLa Porte City$75,000Aluminum 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 1994Thunderstorm WindLa Porte City$50,000no account filed
April 2000HailLa Porte City$40,000no account filed
May 2008FloodLa Porte City$25,000Water was over Highway 218 near La Porte City.
April 2001Thunderstorm WindLa Porte City$25,000no account filed
April 2000HailLa Porte City$20,000no account filed
June 2001Thunderstorm WindLa Porte City$10,000no account filed
June 2014Thunderstorm WindLa Porte City$5,000The Black Hawk County EM reported tree and crop damage.
September 2007Thunderstorm WindLa Porte City$5,000Tree branches of 8 to 10 inches in diameter were blown down, blocking the road at Iowa and Sycamore. Reported by KWWL TV.
July 1994Thunderstorm WindLa Porte City$5,000Thunderstorms 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 2007Thunderstorm WindLa Porte City$5,000no account filed
July 2007HailLa Porte City$3,000no account filed
July 2000Thunderstorm WindLa Porte City$2,000no account filed
August 2025Thunderstorm WindLa Porte City-Measured by a personal weather station. Reports of trees down in town as well.
June 2025Thunderstorm WindLa Porte City-Wind gust report from personal weather station.
May 2024HailLa Porte City-Hail broke windshield of car. Strong wind and heavy rain at the time.
July 2024HailLa Porte City-Relayed by broadcast media of 1-inch hail.
November 2022Heavy RainLa Porte City-A 24 hour rain total of 2.14 inches.
June 2020Heavy RainLa Porte City-Personal weather station recorded 4.23 inches of rainfall over the last 24 hours.
June 2020Heavy RainLa Porte City-Public weather station recorded 4.23 inches of rainfall over the last 24 hours.
June 2020Heavy RainLa Porte City-Personal weather station reported a 24 hour rain total of 3.92 inches.
June 2020Heavy RainLa Porte City-Mesonet station reported a 24 hour rain total of 5.94 inches thus far. Still raining at time of report.
September 2019Thunderstorm WindLa Porte City-Trained spotter reported estimated 60 mph wind gusts just northwest of La Porte City on Highway 218 near Eagle Road.
June 2017HailLa 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.

Photograph PropertyDistance Listed
John N. and Mary McQuilken Houseunder 500 feet1994
Dr. Jesse Wasson Building0.1 miles1999
La Porte City Station0.1 miles1979
Syndicate Block0.1 miles2005
Chapple and Young Block0.1 miles2002
Clement B. Gingrich House0.2 miles1996

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 77000496 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Black Hawk CountyAll 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.