Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981.
From the record
“The Old Worth County Courthouse in Northwood, Iowa, United States, was built in 1880. 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 Old Worth County Courthouse (Iowa), CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 6 National Register listings published here for Worth County · listed in 1981 · category: Building.
National Register reference number.81000276- 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
3 since 2006
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 3 fires within 5 miles of Old Worth County Courthouse
between 2006 and 2014, burning about 124 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/undetermined
2
Debris and open burning
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
13 workings within 5 miles of Old Worth County Courthouse: 8 producers, 3 past producers, 2 unknowns.
8 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.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Northwood, the town this property stands in, in 63 storm reports between 1993 and 2024: 24 hail, 20 thunderstorm wind, 10 heavy rain, 5 flash flood.
The reports record 2 injuries. 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.
Worth County Sheriff's office reported road closures at Ulmus Road between 420th and 400th Rd. Water was flowing over the road from a culvert and 430th between Zinnia Rd west to Yarrow Rd is closed.
County dispatch reported a transformer blown, power lines and power poles down, and tree damage. This is a delayed report and time estimated from radar.
The air mass over Iowa became very unstable during the late afternoon hours. Dew point temperatures soared into the lower 70s F. with surface temperatures reaching the middle 80s to lower 90s F. CAPE values reached 3500 J-kg-1 by the latter part of the afternoon. A small cluster of thunderstorms developed over north-central Iowa. One of them became severe and produced inch diameter hail west of Northwood.
An intense low pressure moved from western Kansas into northwest Iowa during the say. Strong southeast winds drew moisture north from the Gulf of Mexico. Surface dew point temperatures reached the lower 50s ahead of a dry line rotating around the south side of the low. Dew point temperatures were in the 10-12° C range at 850 mb. Thunderstorms erupted during the late afternoon and early evening hours just ahead of the dry line. They became severe over south central Iowa and moved/developed north into the north central counties of the state. Helicity values were quite high in spite of the relatively low cape values. Helicity was in the 550 m2-s-2, while CAPE values were around 500 J-kg-1. Initially, the thunderstorms produced hail. There were several reports of hail in the three-quarter to one inch diameter range from Osceola to just south of Des Moines. WSR-88D VIL values were in the 45-50 kg-m-2 range. One of the stronger cells produced a funnel cloud over Warren County. Spotters were able to watch a rotating wall cloud form just before the funnel formed. As the storms worked north, hail nearly an inch in diameter was reported in Hancock County. Gusty winds became a problem. Wind gusts of 60-65 MPH were reported in Winnebago, Cerro Gordo, and Worth Counties. The storms were quite quick moving, however a series of cells moved across the Des Moines area. They produced heavy rainfall with three inches falling in a short period of time over the eastern sections of Des Moines. This resulted in urban flooding in the area with water over the roads. Soil conditions were quite saturated prior to the rainfall.
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.
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.
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