Old Harrison County Courthouse

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

From the record

“The Old Harrison County Courthouse, located in Magnolia, Iowa, United States, was built in 1873. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 as a part of the County Courthouses in Iowa Thematic Resource.”
Wikipedia article Old Harrison County Courthouse (Iowa), CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 13 National Register listings published here for Harrison County · listed in 1983 · 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. 401 Locust, Magnolia, 51550
When was it listed? February 1983
Category. building
Also known as. County Courthouses in Iowa TR
Township. Magnolia township
National Register reference number. 83000365 - 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

24 since 2006

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 24 fires within 5 miles of Old Harrison County Courthouse between 2006 and 2014, burning about 187 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	14
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	7
Equipment and vehicle use	2
Smoking	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
9 May 2014	Debris and open burning	3.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
23 May 2014	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
12 May 2006	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
9 April 2014	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
9 April 2008	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	10 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
5 April 2014	Debris and open burning	2.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
25 April 2014	Equipment and vehicle use	20 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
22 April 2014	Smoking	1.5 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named

Every fire recorded in Harrison County

Storms near this property

22 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Magnolia, the town this property stands in, in 22 storm reports between 1998 and 2024: 13 hail, 6 thunderstorm wind, 2 heavy rain, 1 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
April 2024	Tornado (EF1)	Magnolia	-	A tornado developed in woodlands about 4 NNW of Magnolia, IA. Road maintenance workers noted damage to the trees south of 174th Trail Road on the south side of Steer Creek. The tornado crossed 174th Trail breaking power poles and damaging a farmstead. The tornado moved generally north moving across agricultural fields and skirting the eastern periphery of the Loess Hills State Forest west of Juneau road, damaging a house and trees. The tornado veered to the NNE, crossing 154th Trail Road, where it moved across an impassable area of Loess Hills State Forest west of Kelsey Avenue. It crossed just south of the intersection of Kelsey Avenue and Easton Trail Road, causing damage to a farmstead and power poles. It continued to move NNE, snapping trunks and large branches of trees and destroying barns and outbuildings along 110th Street, as well as along Laredo Avenue north of 112th Trail Road. The tornado began to weaken as it approached the Harrison-Monona county line, producing only very minor damage as it moved into Monona County east of Peach Avenue. The peak estimated winds in this tornado for this segment of its track were 110 miles per hour. The maximum width achieved by the tornado was 766 yards, with an average width during this segment estimated at 450 yards.
May 2023	Heavy Rain	Magnolia	-	Public reported 4.4 inches of rainfall.
August 2023	Heavy Rain	Magnolia	-	Public reported a measured 5.5-inches of rainfall and that it was still raining at the time of the report.
July 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Magnolia	-	Emergency manager reported a few small tree limbs broken and on the roadways.
May 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Magnolia	-	A report of 60 mph winds was received via amateur radio, although no local damage was noted at the time.
September 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Magnolia	-	Six to eight inch diameter tree limbs were knocked down by thunderstorm wind gusts estimated around 60 mph.
April 2005	Hail	Magnolia	-	Hail up to dime size covered the ground around Magnolia.
June 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Magnolia	-	Thunderstorm wind gusts estimated at over 60 mph created tree damage in Magnolia.
May 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Magnolia	-	Trees downed.
May 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Magnolia	-	Trees uprooted and power lines downed.
April 2017	Hail	Magnolia	-	no account filed
June 2017	Hail	Magnolia	-	no account filed
June 2014	Hail	Magnolia	-	no account filed
June 2014	Hail	Magnolia	-	no account filed
April 2013	Hail	Magnolia	-	no account filed
June 2008	Hail	Magnolia	-	no account filed
June 2008	Hail	Magnolia	-	no account filed
June 2008	Hail	Magnolia	-	no account filed
March 2007	Hail	Magnolia	-	no account filed
March 2005	Hail	Magnolia	-	no account filed
April 1998	Hail	Magnolia	-	no account filed
April 1998	Hail	Magnolia	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Harrison 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

2 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
	Harrison County Courthouse	5.5 miles	1981
	State Savings Bank	5.6 miles	1985

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 83000365 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Harrison County	All 13 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.
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.