Mitchell Powerhouse and Dam

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

From the record

“Mitchell Powerhouse and Dam is a historic structure located in Mitchell, Iowa, United States. The west side of town along the Cedar River developed into a processing and manufacturing area, and its mills were powered by the river's current.”
Wikipedia article Mitchell Powerhouse and Dam, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 12 National Register listings published here for Mitchell County · listed in 1978 · category: Structure.

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, 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
Address. Red Cedar River, Mitchell, 50461
When was it listed? December 1978
Category. structure
Township. Mitchell township
National Register reference number. 78001246 - 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

8 since 2009

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 8 fires within 5 miles of Mitchell Powerhouse and Dam between 2009 and 2016, burning about 10 acres in total. 1 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	5
Debris and open burning	2
Natural	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
7 September 2015	Natural	under an acre	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
11 July 2009	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
5 April 2010	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.5 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	4017 GLASS AVE, ST. ANSGAR, IOWA
30 March 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
30 March 2010	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	1755 HW 105, ST. ANSGAR, IOWA
21 March 2015	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
3 November 2016	Debris and open burning	5.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	WAUKON AREA FIRE PROT. DIST.
24 October 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	OSAGE

Every fire recorded in Mitchell County

Mines and quarries near this property

7 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 7 workings within 5 miles of Mitchell Powerhouse and Dam: 5 past producers, 1 producer, 1 unknown. 1 still produces. 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
Marks Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Unknown	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Blakestad	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Decklever Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Husselman Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Unknown	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Unknown	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Unknown

Every working recorded in Mitchell County

Storms near this property

11 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Mitchell, the town this property stands in, in 11 storm reports between 1994 and 2022: 6 thunderstorm wind, 4 hail, 1 lightning. 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
December 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Mitchell	$175,000	Several buildings were flattened on a large farm just outside of Mitchell.
December 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Mitchell	$75,000	A hog barn and another barn were destroyed on a farm northwest of Osage.
May 1994	Hail	Mitchell	$50,000	no account filed
May 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Mitchell	$40,000	A grain bin was blown over on a farm south of Mitchell.
June 2010	Lightning	Mitchell	$30,000	Lightning caused a barn to catch on fire and destroyed the barn in rural Mitchell County.
May 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Mitchell	$20,000	Three sheds were destroyed with some of the debris wrapped around power lines and a 2x6 was driven into another building on farms southwest of Mitchell.
July 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Mitchell	$4,000	Power lines were blown down and a tree was snapped off northeast of Mitchell.
July 2002	Hail	Mitchell	$2,500	no account filed
July 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Mitchell	$2,000	no account filed
May 2022	Hail	Mitchell	-	Golf ball sized hail was reported northeast of Mitchell.
June 2006	Hail	Mitchell	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Mitchell 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
Cedar Valley Seminary	4.1 miles	1977
Nathaniel Cobb and Lucetia Baily Deering House	4.1 miles	2001
Mitchell County Courthouse	4.2 miles	1977
Our Savior's Lutheran Church	4.2 miles	2022
Osage Commercial Historic District	4.2 miles	2002
Saint Ansgar Public School	4.6 miles	2020

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 78001246 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Mitchell County	All 12 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.
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.