Pocahontas County Courthouse

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981.

From the record

“The Pocahontas County Courthouse located in Pocahontas, Iowa, United States, was built in 1923. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981 as a part of the County Courthouses in Iowa Thematic Resource.”
Wikipedia article Pocahontas County Courthouse (Iowa), CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 3 National Register listings published here for Pocahontas County · listed in 1981 · 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. Court Sq., Pocahontas, 50574
When was it listed? July 1981
Category. building
Also known as. County Courthouses in Iowa TR
Township. Center township
Architectural style. Neoclassical architecture
Architect. Proudfoot & Bird
National Register reference number. 81000264 - 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

3 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 3 workings within 5 miles of Pocahontas County Courthouse: 2 past producers, 1 producer. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. 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
Unknown	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Unknown	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Unknown	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Pocahontas County

Storms near this property

60 of 62 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Pocahontas, the town this property stands in, in 62 storm reports between 1994 and 2023: 25 hail, 16 heavy rain, 14 thunderstorm wind, 3 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.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
July 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Pocahontas	$100,000	Coop building and implement machine shed had significant damage near Highway 3 and Main Street. Several large tree branches were down with whole trees downed on the northeast side of town. Tree damage was also reported at the country club in town.
August 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Pocahontas	$100,000	no account filed
August 1996	Flood	Pocahontas	$75,000	no account filed
June 2018	Flash Flood	Pocahontas	$50,000	Trained spotter reported Highway 4 in Pocahontas was partially covered and some side streets in town were covered in water as well.
September 1994	Hail	Pocahontas	$50,000	no account filed
June 1998	Flash Flood	Pocahontas	$40,000	no account filed
May 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Pocahontas	$30,000	no account filed
May 1998	Flood	Pocahontas	$30,000	no account filed
May 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Pocahontas	$30,000	no account filed
May 2012	Hail	Pocahontas	$25,000	Golf ball size hail was reported on the north side of town with half dollar size hail reported at the Casey's location.
August 2004	Hail	Pocahontas	$25,000	no account filed
July 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Pocahontas	$20,000	no account filed
October 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Pocahontas	$20,000	no account filed
September 1999	Hail	Pocahontas	$15,000	no account filed
June 2018	Flash Flood	Pocahontas	$10,000	Public reported ditches full and field covered in rain water. Highway 4 was partially covered with water as well.
May 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Pocahontas	$10,000	A wind gust of 65 MPH as measured by a hand-held anemometer.
May 2006	Hail	Pocahontas	$10,000	no account filed
August 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Pocahontas	$10,000	no account filed
April 2001	Hail	Pocahontas	$10,000	no account filed
June 1999	Hail	Pocahontas	$10,000	no account filed
June 1996	Flood	Pocahontas	$10,000	no account filed
August 2018	Hail	Pocahontas	$5,000	Public reported, relayed by local media, hail around 2 inches in diameter. Time and location estimated from radar and this is a delayed report.
April 2011	Hail	Pocahontas	$5,000	no account filed
August 2004	Hail	Pocahontas	$5,000	no account filed
August 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Pocahontas	$5,000	no account filed
August 1995	Hail	Pocahontas	$5,000	no account filed
May 2001	Hail	Pocahontas	$3,000	no account filed
April 2001	Hail	Pocahontas	$3,000	no account filed
May 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Pocahontas	$2,000	Trained spotter reported strong winds and heavy rainfall. Many streets in town had tree branches down ranging from small sticks to big, round branches. A tree was snapped at one of the cemeteries on the east side of town. Standing water throughout town.
July 2000	Hail	Pocahontas	$2,000	no account filed
July 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Pocahontas	$1,000	no account filed
July 2000	Hail	Pocahontas	$1,000	no account filed
July 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Pocahontas	$1,000	no account filed
July 2023	Heavy Rain	Pocahontas	-	Event total of 2.20 inches.
April 2022	Hail	Pocahontas	-	Trained spotter reported penny and quarter sized hail.
August 2022	Hail	Pocahontas	-	Law enforcement reported golf ball sized hail roughly half a mile west of Pocahontas.
August 2022	Hail	Pocahontas	-	Law enforcement reports golf ball sized hail just south of Pocahontas near Highway 4.
August 2022	Heavy Rain	Pocahontas	-	Report of 2.5 inches of rain west of Pocahontas in about 30 minutes.
August 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Pocahontas	-	Report of trees down in Pocahontas with a few blocking roads.
August 2021	Heavy Rain	Pocahontas	-	A 24 hour rain total of 2.15 inches.
August 2021	Heavy Rain	Pocahontas	-	CWOP report from a personal weather station of 2.41 inches of rain in 3 hours.
June 2018	Hail	Pocahontas	-	Public reported nickel sized hail.
August 2018	Hail	Pocahontas	-	Public reported quarter sized hail.
June 2018	Heavy Rain	Pocahontas	-	Coop observer recorded heavy rainfall of 2.5 inches over the last 24 hours.
July 2018	Heavy Rain	Pocahontas	-	Coop observer recorded heavy rainfall of 2.90 inches over the last 24 hours.
July 2018	Heavy Rain	Pocahontas	-	Coop observer recorded heavy rainfall of 2.90 inches over the last 24 hours.
June 2018	Heavy Rain	Pocahontas	-	Public reported heavy rainfall of 3.1 inches.
June 2018	Hail	Pocahontas	-	Pocahontas Sheriff reported nickel sized hail near the Pocahontas Community Hospital. Time estimated from radar.
July 2018	Heavy Rain	Pocahontas	-	Coop observer recorded heavy rainfall of 2.50 inches over the last 24 hours. Due to database entry limitation, beginning time coded as midnight CST.
July 2018	Heavy Rain	Pocahontas	-	Public reported heavy rainfall of 2.50 inches. Due to database entry limitation, beginning time coded as midnight CST. Actual estimated start time of 4pm CDT on June 30th.
August 2017	Hail	Pocahontas	-	Trained spotter reported quarter sized hail.
September 2016	Heavy Rain	Pocahontas	-	Coop observer reported heavy rainfall of 2.95 inches.
August 2015	Heavy Rain	Pocahontas	-	Public reported heavy rainfall of 4.50 inches over the last 24 hours.
August 2015	Heavy Rain	Pocahontas	-	Public reported heavy rainfall of 3.25 inches. End time radar estimated.
December 2015	Heavy Rain	Pocahontas	-	Coop observer reported heavy rainfall of 2.51 inches over the last 48 hours/storm total so far.
June 2012	Heavy Rain	Pocahontas	-	Heavy rainfall with 1.85 inches falling in 45 minutes.
July 2010	Heavy Rain	Pocahontas	-	Rainfall since 0200 CST was 3.17 inches.
August 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Pocahontas	-	no account filed
July 2013	Hail	Pocahontas	-	no account filed
July 2013	Hail	Pocahontas	-	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.

Listed places nearby

1 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	Property	Distance	Listed
	Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church	0.2 miles	1994

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 81000264 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.
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.