Grinnell Historic Commercial District

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.

From the record

“The Grinnell Historic Commercial District is a nationally recognized historic district located in Grinnell, Iowa, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.”
Wikipedia article Grinnell Historic Commercial District, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 26 National Register listings published here for Poweshiek County · listed in 1991 · category: District.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

Address. Roughly bounded by Main, Broad and Commercial Sts. and 5th Ave., Grinnell, 50112
When was it listed? April 1991
Category. district
Also known as. Grinnell MPS
City. Grinnell city
National Register reference number. 91000384 - 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

25 since 2006

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 25 fires within 5 miles of Grinnell Historic Commercial District between 2006 and 2017, burning about 192 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	18
Debris and open burning	7

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
30 September 2011	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	20TH ST. , IA
7 May 2006	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	100 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
19 May 2006	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
8 April 2006	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
6 April 2013	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
5 April 2013	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
4 April 2009	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	3.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named
28 April 2013	Debris and open burning	6.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named

Every fire recorded in Poweshiek County

Storms near this property

60 of 87 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Grinnell, the town this property stands in, in 87 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 29 thunderstorm wind, 29 heavy rain, 22 hail, 3 lightning. The reports record 7 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.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
April 2010	Hail	Grinnell	6 hurt, $500,000	no account filed
May 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	1 hurt, $150,000	no account filed
April 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$3,000,000	On the north edge of Grinnell, cars were reported off the road and flipped. Power lines were down and roofs were blown off homes.
June 2010	Lightning	Grinnell	$550,000	no account filed
October 2018	Flood	Grinnell	$100,000	Emergency manager reported water over a few gravel roads near Grinnell north of Interstate 80 and other county roads closed near Searsboro due to flooding.
May 2013	Flash Flood	Grinnell	$100,000	Roads in the city covered with water and impassible.
April 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$100,000	Two barns were blown down just west of Grinnell.
April 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$75,000	Damage was caused to several homes in Grinnell.
June 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$50,000	Emergency manager reported damage to utility poles, power lines down including high voltage lines, and debris throughout the city blocking streets. Time estimated from AWOS gusts.
September 2018	Flood	Grinnell	$50,000	Law enforcement reported several county and rural roads across the county were under water from the heavy rainfall.
August 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$50,000	Local newspaper reported at least 15 to 20 trees down across the northern side of Grinnell, some 3 to 4 feet in diameter. Multiple trees fell and damaged building and house roofs. At least 12000 people without power in the area. Delayed report, and time estimated from radar.
April 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$50,000	Damage to outbuildings and a trailer was caused by high thunderstorm winds.
July 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$50,000	Trees down, transformers down, and power outages.
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$50,000	Numerous tree limbs down across town and the power was out.
May 2003	Hail	Grinnell	$50,000	no account filed
May 2003	Hail	Grinnell	$50,000	no account filed
May 2003	Hail	Grinnell	$50,000	no account filed
June 1998	Flood	Grinnell	$50,000	no account filed
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$40,000	The roof was blown off of the Farm Bureau Service building in Grinnell.
June 2010	Lightning	Grinnell	$25,000	no account filed
March 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$25,000	no account filed
June 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$25,000	no account filed
June 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$25,000	no account filed
July 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$15,000	Numerous trees uprooted and blown down by high winds.
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$15,000	Tree damage on the Grinnell College campus.
May 2003	Hail	Grinnell	$15,000	no account filed
May 2003	Hail	Grinnell	$15,000	no account filed
May 2003	Hail	Grinnell	$15,000	no account filed
June 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$10,000	Three to four tree limbs three to five inches in diameter down. One branch was 20 feet long.
April 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$10,000	Sheet metal was blown down and there was street sign damage.
May 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$10,000	no account filed
June 2001	Hail	Grinnell	$10,000	no account filed
June 2005	Hail	Grinnell	$5,000	no account filed
September 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$5,000	no account filed
June 1998	Lightning	Grinnell	$5,000	no account filed
June 1997	Hail	Grinnell	$5,000	no account filed
June 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$5,000	no account filed
June 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$3,000	Estimated winds of 60 to 65 MPH from the Grinnell College Security personnel.
July 2014	Hail	Grinnell	$3,000	no account filed
April 2010	Hail	Grinnell	$3,000	no account filed
July 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$3,000	no account filed
April 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$2,000	Trees down in the area caused by high thunderstorm winds.
June 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$2,000	A trained spotter estimated winds of 60 MPH.
April 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$2,000	Two power poles were blown down and damage was reported to small buildings.
October 2004	Hail	Grinnell	$2,000	no account filed
October 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$2,000	no account filed
July 2000	Hail	Grinnell	$2,000	no account filed
July 2000	Hail	Grinnell	$2,000	no account filed
July 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	$1,000	no account filed
June 2005	Hail	Grinnell	$1,000	no account filed
June 2003	Hail	Grinnell	$1,000	no account filed
June 2025	Heavy Rain	Grinnell	-	Rain total of 3 inches from the morning storms.
June 2025	Heavy Rain	Grinnell	-	Morning total of 5.1 inches from storms.
June 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	-	Delayed report of tree damage, solar farm damage, and large branches downed mainly on the north side of Grinnell.
May 2023	Hail	Grinnell	-	Report via social media.
June 2020	Heavy Rain	Grinnell	-	CoCoRaHS observer recorded 3.70 inches of rainfall over the last 24 hours.
June 2020	Heavy Rain	Grinnell	-	Public weather station measured 3.3 inches of rain. Beginning time estimated by radar.
October 2019	Heavy Rain	Grinnell	-	Public reported heavy rainfall of 5.78 inches over the past 24 hours.
October 2019	Heavy Rain	Grinnell	-	CoCoRaHS observer recorded heavy rainfall of 4.25 inches over the past 24 hours.
June 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Grinnell	-	Grinnell Airport AWOS recorded a 63 mph wind gust.

Every storm recorded in Poweshiek 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
Spaulding Manufacturing Company	under 500 feet	1978
Merchants' National Bank	under 500 feet	1976
Grinnell Herald Building	under 500 feet	1991
Interior Telephone Company Building	under 500 feet	1990
Farmers Mutual Reinsurance Company Building	under 500 feet	2013
Bowers and McDonald Office Building	under 500 feet	1990

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 91000384 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Poweshiek County	All 26 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.