BlockBefore
Photograph of Fraser & Isham Law Office
Photograph by Nyttend, Public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Fraser & Isham Law Office

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.

From the record

“Fraser & Isham Law Office, also known as Christopher Law Office, is a historic law office building located at Fowler, Indiana. It was built in 1896, and is a one-story, rectangular Romanesque Revival style red brick building.”

Wikipedia article Fraser & Isham Law Office, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 7 National Register listings published here for Benton County · listed in 2000 · 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. 306 E Fifth St., Fowler, 47944
  • When was it listed? September 2000
  • Category. building
  • Township. Center township
  • National Register reference number. 00001135 - 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.

The ground it stands on

1,723 words

The chapter on Center Township in Progress of Education in Benton County, Indiana : with an Explanation of the Indiana School System and the Duties of School Officers, Patrons and Pupils, published 1906 names Fowler. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.

Center sclioul. The first part of the term was taught by Jennie Lane of Lafayette, but it was completed by Elizabeth Young. She also taught the first term in the East Center school which was built in 1872. Laura Lewis, Henrietta, Jessie and William Graham, and ^lary A. Pearson (Chenoweth) were pupils in the summer kitchen school. Matthew H. Walker taught the second term at East Center. The third schoolhouse built was in Fowler, and two other buildings were erected before Prairie became Center township. The country- teachers in 1875-6 were Adelaide Smith, F. J. Brown, Samuel Heisler and T. M. Underwood. The enumeration was seventy-five in 1866 and 109 in 1871. In 1870-1 but one school was taught; the enrollment was seventy-nine, daily average forty-two, days taught 120, teacher's daily wages |1. 871/2? total value of school property in township |360, and forty-six volumes in the librar}'.

Passage source: Progress of Education in Benton County, Indiana : with an Explanation of the Indiana School System and the Duties of School Officers, Patrons and Pupils, published 1906.

Warren B. Sheetz established a graded school at Swanington in 1894, employing Carl McCaslin and Lulu Johnson as the teachers in 1894-5. The people in the vicinity have always taken pride in this school and have done much to uphold it. They are now asking Trustee Hagenbuch to build them a new building and organize a high school. There are 1,210 books in the school libraries of the township. Many of Center's common school graduates have completed the course of the Fowler commissioned high school, and quite a number of them have taken a college course. Mr. Hagenbuch has been both a high school and college student, and is especially anxious that his teachers and schools should be of the best.

Passage source: Progress of Education in Benton County, Indiana : with an Explanation of the Indiana School System and the Duties of School Officers, Patrons and Pupils, published 1906.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Center Township - 1,723 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

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 Fraser & Isham Law Office: 1 producer. All of them still produce. What was taken out: Stone. 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
Benton County Highway Dept.StoneProducer

Every working recorded in Benton County

Storms near this property

34 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Fowler, the town this property stands in, in 34 storm reports between 1996 and 2026: 20 thunderstorm wind, 11 hail, 1 flood, 1 funnel cloud. 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
June 2013Thunderstorm WindFowler$5,000The siding on a home was damaged by strong winds.
May 2025Thunderstorm WindFowler-Thunderstorm outflow winds on the leading edge of a dust storm blew down numerous trees in and around Fowler. Three houses were damaged by trees, one seriously. Damage to roofs and windows was also reported, along with 15 utility poles snapped. A DOT webcam showed near zero visibility on Route 41 west of Fowler.
May 2024Thunderstorm WindFowler-Shingles were blown off a portion of a roof on a house in the 110 block of East Main Street.
February 2023Thunderstorm WindFowler-Roof damage was reported to outbuildings.
June 2023Thunderstorm WindFowler-Tree limbs 4 to 8 inches in diameter were blown down throughout Fowler.
June 2020Heavy RainFowler-Rainfall of 7.01 inches was measured in 21 hours. Approximately 5.5 inches of rain fell between 330 pm and 7 pm.
May 2019Thunderstorm WindFowler-Tree damage was reported in Fowler.
July 2016Funnel CloudFowler-Benton County Emergency Manager relayed reports of funnel clouds, near and south of Boswell and south of Fowler.
June 2013Thunderstorm WindFowler-A large limb was blown down.
July 2010Thunderstorm WindFowler-Trees were blown down.
December 2008Thunderstorm WindFowler-Wind gusts were estimated to 60 mph.
March 2007FloodFowler-Two roads closed due to high water.
May 2006Thunderstorm WindFowler-Seven inch tree limb broken off.
June 2005Thunderstorm WindFowler-Six inch trees limbs were split and power lines were blown down.
May 2004Thunderstorm WindFowler-Large tree limbs were blown down in the southwest corner of Benton County.
July 2003Thunderstorm WindFowler-Utility poles and tree limbs blown down.
July 2001Thunderstorm WindFowler-Power lines blown down.
July 2000Thunderstorm WindFowler-Tree limbs and power lines were blown down in Fowler. Pea size hail was also reported. A satellite dish was blown over and twisted south of Fowler.
April 2026Thunderstorm WindFowler-no account filed
March 2025Thunderstorm WindFowler-no account filed
November 2011HailFowler-no account filed
June 2008HailFowler-no account filed
June 2008HailFowler-no account filed
August 2007HailFowler-no account filed
April 2006HailFowler-no account filed
September 2005HailFowler-no account filed
May 2004Thunderstorm WindFowler-no account filed
May 2004HailFowler-no account filed
May 2004HailFowler-no account filed
April 2003HailFowler-no account filed
October 2001HailFowler-no account filed
April 2000HailFowler-no account filed
June 2000Thunderstorm WindFowler-no account filed
January 1996Thunderstorm WindFowler-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Benton 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.

Photograph PropertyDistance Listed
Fowler Theatre0.2 miles2004
Benton County Courthouse0.2 miles2008
Oxford Community Mausoleum7.6 miles2020
David S. Heath House7.6 miles1999
Oxford Town Square Historic District7.7 miles2026
Presbyterian Church Building7.7 miles1984

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 00001135 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Benton CountyAll 7 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.
  • 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.