BlockBefore
Photograph of Watson's Grocery
Photograph by Dan Breyfogle, CC BY-SA 3.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Watson's Grocery

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.

From the record

“The Watson's Grocery is located in State Center, Iowa. The store was built in 1895 for William Watson, owner of Watson's Grocery Store, and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1998.”

Wikipedia article Watson's Grocery, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 18 National Register listings published here for Marshall County · listed in 1998 · category: Building.

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

The listing

  • What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
  • Address. 106 Main St., State Center, 50247
  • When was it listed? October 1998
  • Category. building
  • Township. State Center township
  • National Register reference number. 98001271 - 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 Watson's Grocery between 2006 and 2020, burning about 90 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/undetermined18
Debris and open burning5
Railroad operations and maintenance1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
16 June 2006Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
12 May 2009Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
12 May 2009Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
8 April 2019Debris and open burning5.0 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
6 April 2019Missing data/not specified/undetermined4.0 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
3 April 2009Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
23 April 2018Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
23 April 2018Railroad operations and maintenanceunder an acreIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named

Every fire recorded in Marshall 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 Watson's Grocery: 1 past producer. None of them 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.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
UnknownSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer

Every working recorded in Marshall County

Storms near this property

60 of 62 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names State Center, the town this property stands in, in 62 storm reports between 1993 and 2024: 24 thunderstorm wind, 23 hail, 9 heavy rain, 4 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
April 1994Tornado (F1)State Center$500,000no account filed
June 2000Tornado (F1)State Center$150,000Intermittent track
May 1998HailState Center$100,000no account filed
June 2000Thunderstorm WindState Center$75,000no account filed
May 1998HailState Center$50,000no account filed
April 1994Thunderstorm WindState Center$50,000no account filed
April 1994HailState Center$50,000no account filed
July 2007Thunderstorm WindState Center$30,000no account filed
May 2001HailState Center$30,000no account filed
March 2008Flash FloodState Center$25,000Water was reported flowing over Highway 30.
March 2008Flash FloodState Center$25,000Water was reported flowing over Highway 30. In addition, water was flowing over Highway 65 near Zearing and just south of Colo. Numerous county roads have water over them.
June 2005Thunderstorm WindState Center$25,000no account filed
September 2004Tornado (F0)State Center$20,000Tornado tracked across open country but did damage trees, sheds, and a grain bin.
June 1998Thunderstorm WindState Center$20,000no account filed
May 2012Thunderstorm WindState Center$15,000Several ten inch limbs down.
June 2012Thunderstorm WindState Center$15,000Part of a metal roof was blown off part of a car wash and a portion of a gas station canopy was blown off. A storage shed was pushed four feet off the foundation by high winds.
June 2011HailState Center$15,000no account filed
June 2011HailState Center$15,000no account filed
May 2019HailState Center$10,000Emergency manager reported ping pong ball sized hail.
May 2010HailState Center$10,000Marshall County EM relayed a report of quarter to walnut size hail covering the ground at State Center.
September 2004Tornado (F1)State Center$10,000Tornado tracked through rural areas of Marshall County west of State Center.
March 2007Thunderstorm WindState Center$10,000no account filed
March 2007Thunderstorm WindState Center$10,000no account filed
June 2001HailState Center$10,000no account filed
July 2001Thunderstorm WindState Center$10,000no account filed
July 2001Thunderstorm WindState Center$10,000no account filed
September 2001Thunderstorm WindState Center$10,000no account filed
May 1998HailState Center$10,000no account filed
May 1998HailState Center$10,000no account filed
July 2013Thunderstorm WindState Center$5,000Three power lines downed. Wind tied to outflow boundary ahead of the storm.
May 2013Thunderstorm WindState Center$5,000Pea to dime size hail with the wind.
August 2004Thunderstorm WindState Center$5,000no account filed
July 2003HailState Center$5,000no account filed
April 2001Thunderstorm WindState Center$5,000no account filed
June 2000HailState Center$5,000no account filed
June 1998Thunderstorm WindState Center$5,000no account filed
April 1996HailState Center$5,000no account filed
August 1993Thunderstorm WindState Center$5,000no account filed
May 2013Thunderstorm WindState Center$3,000Four to six inch tree branches down with power outages.
June 2005Thunderstorm WindState Center$3,000no account filed
July 2003HailState Center$3,000no account filed
June 1998Thunderstorm WindState Center$3,000no account filed
April 2014HailState Center$2,000no account filed
April 2001Thunderstorm WindState Center$2,000no account filed
May 1996Thunderstorm WindState Center$2,000no account filed
July 2008HailState Center$1,000no account filed
March 2005HailState Center$1,000no account filed
May 2024Heavy RainState Center-Trained spotter relayed 24 hr heavy rainfall of 3.75 inches.
July 2023Heavy RainState Center-Event total of 2.95 inches.
June 2020Heavy RainState Center-Public report via social media of 1.9 inches of rain between 4:45pm and 5:45pm CDT.
June 2020Heavy RainState Center-Public measured 1.95 inches of rain. Beginning time estimated by radar.
August 2020Thunderstorm WindState Center-Emergency manager reported significant damage in State Center with numerous cars blown off US 30 and flipped.
July 2015Heavy RainState Center-Marshall county Emergency Manager measured 4.20 inches of total rainfall for the event.
July 2015Heavy RainState Center-Updated 24 hour rainfall amount of approximately 6.40 inches reported by the county Emergency Manager.
December 2015Heavy RainState Center-Emergency manager reported heavy rainfall of 6.38 inches storm total.
May 2013Heavy RainState Center-Rainfall total was 4.94 inches.
May 2013Heavy RainState Center-Rainfall total was 3.94 inches.
April 2010HailState Center-A few stones of nickel size; pea size hail nearly covered the ground.
April 2015HailState Center-no account filed
June 2011HailState Center-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Marshall 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

5 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 PropertyDistance Listed
State Center Commercial Historic Districtunder 500 feet2002
Home Oil Service Station0.2 miles2025
August and Josephine Riemenschneider Farmstead0.3 miles2022
Louis F. and Emma M. (Edler) Wohlert House-Emma Wohlert Maternity Home0.4 miles2024
Dobbin Round Barn2.8 miles1986

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 98001271 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Marshall CountyAll 18 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.