Power Plant No. 1

Built in 1934 (Art Deco architecture). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.

From the record

“Power Plant No. 1 is an historic oil-burning power plant at 414 West Elizabeth Street in McPherson, Kansas. The plant was added to the National Historic Register in 2007.”
Wikipedia article Power Plant No. 1, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 26 National Register listings published here for McPherson County · listed in 2007 · category: Site · built in 1934, Art Deco architecture.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

Address. 414 W Elizabeth, McPherson, 67460
When was it listed? October 2007
Category. site
City. McPherson city
When was it built? 1934
Architectural style. Art Deco architecture
National Register reference number. 07001067 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.

Fires near this property

173 since 2002

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 173 fires within 5 miles of Power Plant No. 1 between 2002 and 2020, burning about 252 acres in total. 5 started naturally. 29 were 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	44
Debris and open burning	33
Smoking	32
Arson/incendiarism	29
Equipment and vehicle use	19
Recreation and ceremony	7
Natural	5
Fireworks	2
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1
Misuse of fire by a minor	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
29 September 2020	Recreation and ceremony	30 acres	Kansas Forest Service	not named
29 September 2017	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	McPherson County	837
26 September 2005	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	McPherson County	not named
25 September 2005	Smoking	1.0 acres	McPherson County	not named
24 September 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Kansas Forest Service	828
22 September 2015	Power generation/transmission/distribution	under an acre	Kansas Forest Service	666
20 September 2004	Equipment and vehicle use	6.0 acres	McPherson County	not named
2 September 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Kansas Forest Service	613

Every fire recorded in McPherson County

Storms near this property

7 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names McPherson, the town this property stands in, in 7 storm reports between 1994 and 1995: 4 hail, 3 thunderstorm wind. 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
July 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	McPherson	$50,000	A huge tree was uprooted and landed on a house in Inman. Winds of 60 miles an hour were reported six miles west of McPherson.
July 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	McPherson	$5,000	Over 60 mile an hour winds from Windom to McPherson downed tree limbs and power poles. Some businesses in McPherson had their storefront windows blown out.
May 1995	Hail	McPherson	-	no account filed
May 1995	Hail	McPherson	-	no account filed
June 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Mcpherson	-	no account filed
July 1995	Hail	Mcpherson	-	no account filed
July 1995	Hail	Mcpherson	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in McPherson 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
Kuns-Collier House	0.1 miles	2006
John R. Wright House	0.2 miles	2002
McPherson County Courthouse	0.2 miles	1976
McPherson Opera House	0.2 miles	1972
McPherson, Community Building	0.3 miles	2018
Lakeside Park Band Shell	1.1 miles	2025

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 07001067 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
McPherson 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.