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Photograph of Washington Township Center High School
Photograph by Farragutful, CC BY-SA 4.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Washington Township Center High School

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

From the record

“Washington Township Center High School, also known as the Washington Township Community Center, is a historic building located northeast of Amish, Iowa, United States. Built in 1926, this public institution was both a throw-back to the 19th-century and forward-looking at the same time.”

Wikipedia article Washington Township Center High School, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 96 National Register listings published here for Johnson County · listed in 1979 · 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. NE of Amish, Amish, 52247
  • When was it listed? December 1979
  • Category. building
  • Township. Washington township
  • National Register reference number. 79000903 - 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

1 since 2009

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 1 fire within 5 miles of Washington Township Center High School in 2009, burning about 40 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/undetermined1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
10 April 2009Missing data/not specified/undetermined40 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named

Every fire recorded in Johnson County

Mines and quarries near this property

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Washington Township Center High School: 1 past producer. None of them still produces. What was taken out: 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
UnknownStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer

Every working recorded in Johnson County

Storms near this property

12 since 2001

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Amish, the town this property stands in, in 12 storm reports between 2001 and 2024: 4 hail, 4 tornado, 3 thunderstorm wind, 1 funnel cloud. 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
July 2024Thunderstorm WindAmish-A trained spotter reported an estimated 60 MPH wind gust.
July 2024Thunderstorm WindAmish-A trained spotter reported a large tree branches downed by the winds, with some trees snapped in half, one tree fell on their neighbors house, damaging the deck.
May 2024Tornado (EF1)Amish-A tornado developed southwest of Wellman in Washington County, and tracked quickly to the northeast along a patch through the Amish and Frytown areas in Johnson County. The tornado caused damage to homes, outbuildings, and trees. No injuries were reported. Thanks to Washington and Johnson County emergency management for assistance in completing the survey.
March 2023Tornado (EF0)Amish-A review of Sentinel satellite data confirms that a separate tornado developed near Amish, and moved northeast around 6 miles to near Frytown, before dissipating. The tornado caused damage to farm outbuildings along its path. The tornado was rated EF0 with maximum winds around 85 mph. After the tornado dissipated, the associated supercell thunderstorm cycled again and produced an EF2 tornado that tracked from Coralville to Solon.
March 2023Tornado (EF1)Amish-Another large, violent tornado developed in eastern Keokuk County as the initial tornado was weakening southwest of Keota. The tornado tracked to the northeast, on the western fringe of Keota, and crossed into Washington County near the intersection of Keokuk-Washington Road and 180th St. The tornado then continued through northwest Washington county, extreme southeast Iowa County, and into far southwest Johnson County. The tornado severely damaged several homes near Keota, wiping one house completely off its foundation, resulting in EF-4 level damage. A car was lofted in the air and tossed about 1000 feet into a nearby field and trees were completely debarked with only stubs of the largest branches remaining. As the tornado tracked west of Wellman, Iowa it knocked over a 325 ft cell phone tower. The tornado moved into extreme southeast Iowa County near the intersection of Iowa-Washington Road and Ginkgo Ave., and then into far southwest Johnson County, about a third of a mile north of the intersection of Iowa-Washington Road and Johnson Iowa Road SW. The tornado dissipated just northwest of Hillcrest Academy in Johnson County. The tornado was rated EF-4 in Keokuk County, EF-3 in Washington County, and EF-1 in Iowa and Johnson Counties.
October 2023HailAmish-Ping pong ball size hail fell for 10 minutes.
May 2019Tornado (EF0)Amish-An EF-0 tornado touched down at a farmstead and moved northeast through a farm field into a wooded area, where tree damage was observed. The tornado was on the ground for less than one minute and the path length was around a quarter mile. Times estimated by radar. Winds were estimated up to 75 MPH.
June 2013Thunderstorm WindAmish-A trained spotter reported a 60 foot pine tree was blown down. They estimated the winds to be around 60 mph. Additionally, over six inches of rain fell in the area since midnight.
May 2001Funnel CloudAmish-Reported by public.
October 2024HailAmish-no account filed
April 2017HailAmish-no account filed
August 2012HailAmish-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Johnson 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

3 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
St. John's Lutheran Church5.3 miles1977
Miller Round Barn7.2 miles1986
Roberts Octagon Barn7.4 miles1986

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 79000903 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Johnson CountyAll 96 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.