Pottawattamie County Sub Courthouse

Built in 1885. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981.

From the record

“The Pottawattamie County Sub Courthouse is located in Avoca, Iowa, United States. Because Pottawattamie County is wide geographically, and the county seat in Council Bluffs is located at its western edge, this sub courthouse was located in the eastern portion of the county.”
Wikipedia article Pottawattamie County Sub Courthouse, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 43 National Register listings published here for Pottawattamie County · listed in 1981 · category: Building · built in 1885.

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. Elm St., Avoca, 51521
When was it listed? July 1981
Category. building
Also known as. County Courthouses in Iowa TR
Township. Knox township
When was it built? 1885
National Register reference number. 81000265 - 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

5 since 2014

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 5 fires within 5 miles of Pottawattamie County Sub Courthouse between 2014 and 2017, 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
Debris and open burning	3
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2

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
8 April 2014	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	4.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
16 April 2014	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	3.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
22 March 2017	Debris and open burning	20 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
18 March 2017	Debris and open burning	5.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
15 March 2015	Debris and open burning	7.5 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named

Every fire recorded in Pottawattamie 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 Pottawattamie County Sub Courthouse: 1 producer. All of them still produce. 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.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Avoca Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Every working recorded in Pottawattamie County

Storms near this property

28 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Avoca, the town this property stands in, in 28 storm reports between 1994 and 2023: 14 hail, 9 thunderstorm wind, 3 flood, 2 tornado. 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
May 2007	Flood	Avoca	$1,560,000	Heavy rainfall over the weekend of May 4th through the 6th, caused the West Nishnabotna River to flood across Pottawattamie county. The West Nishnabotna River at Hancock crested around 20.5 feet between 1130 pm and midnight May 6th. Flood stage is 14 feet. The river at Hancock first crossed flood stage around 6 am cdt May 6th and didn't drop below flood stage until around 1 pm cdt on the 7th. The flooding affected farmland and many county roads in the area from around Avoca through Hancock. Some homes were also damaged.
November 2015	Tornado (EF1)	Avoca	$250,000	The tornado started just south of the County Road 18 to the west of the city of Avoca, Iowa. The tornado tracked to the north northeast through open fields initially. Due to the recent harvest the tornado was easily tracked through the fields due to ground scouring of the left-over corn stocks. The tornado narrowly missed a farmstead along 420th street but did destroy one empty grain bin located across the street from the farm. The tornado continued to track across open fields until it crossed the busy Interstate 80 where a semi was lofted and tossed into a ditch on the north side of the interstate. At this location there were also large hardwood trees that were uprooted. The tornado continued to the northeast into Shelby County.
July 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Avoca	$50,000	no account filed
June 2010	Flood	Avoca	$1,000	Heavy rain during the early morning hours of June 27th caused the West Nishnabotna River to briefly surpass flood stage around Hancock. The river crested at close to 14.5 feet during the afternoon of the 27th, flood stage is 14 feet. Some minor flooding occurred near a park in Hancock along with agricultural lowlands.
July 2023	Tornado (EF0)	Avoca	-	There is a distinct tornado track through crop fields approximately 40 yards wide at the max. The track begins in a soybean field and then moves into the corn field where the narrow track and convergent flow pattern are most pronounced. It crosses a creek, breaks a few branches, and then through another corn field where there is convergent flow into the center of the track from the edges.
June 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Avoca	-	Public reported a semi blown over on the interstate.
December 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Avoca	-	Storm chaser reported a semi rolled over on I80.
December 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Avoca	-	Mesonet station RAVI4 measured a peak wind gust of 67 mph.
September 2019	Hail	Avoca	-	A trained spotter reported hail up to golf ball size.
September 2019	Hail	Avoca	-	The public reported hail up to half dollar size.
April 2018	Hail	Avoca	-	Nickel size hail reported east of Avoca.
June 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Avoca	-	Large tree limbs (24 inch in diameter) and trees blown down in Avoca and across US Highway 59.
April 2010	Hail	Avoca	-	Hail up to 1.5 inches in diameter caused rather extensive damage to cars and even some houses in the Avoca area.
June 2008	Flood	Avoca	-	Heavy rain for the second consecutive day produced flooding along the West Nishnabotna River in Pottawattamie county. The river at Hancock crested at 15.8 feet at 745 pm CDT on 6/9, flood stage is 14 feet. The river was above flood stage from around 230 pm on 6/8 until 615 am on 6/9.\|\|The flooding affected mainly agricultural lowlands.
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Avoca	-	An Iowa Department of Highway Rwis station measured a thunderstorm wind gust of 60 mph along Interstate 80 near Avoca.
June 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Avoca	-	The Pottawattamie county dispatch reported that thunderstorm wind gusts estimated at 70 mph downed a few trees in Avoca.
August 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Avoca	-	A thunderstorm wind gust estimated at 60 mph was reported near Avoca.
June 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Avoca	-	Thunderstorm wind gusts estimated to near 60 mph were reported in Avoca.
July 2003	Hail	Avoca	-	Some of the hail was still on the ground at daybreak.
March 2017	Hail	Avoca	-	no account filed
July 2013	Hail	Avoca	-	no account filed
June 2007	Hail	Avoca	-	no account filed
May 2005	Hail	Avoca	-	no account filed
June 2005	Hail	Avoca	-	no account filed
May 2004	Hail	Avoca	-	no account filed
July 2003	Hail	Avoca	-	no account filed
May 2001	Hail	Avoca	-	no account filed
July 1998	Hail	Avoca	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Pottawattamie 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
Charles Henry and Charlotte Norton House	0.2 miles	2004
Graceland Cemetery Chapel	1.0 miles	1986
Francis A. and Rose M. Turner House	1.6 miles	1997
German Bank Building of Walnut, Iowa	6.0 miles	1991
Carstens Farmstead	6.1 miles	1979
Hancock Savings Bank	6.1 miles

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 81000265 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Pottawattamie County	All 43 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.