BlockFrom the record
One of 22 National Register listings published here for Marshall County · listed in 2008 · category: Building.
Sources: the National Register database, National Park Service
Waterville Opera House
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.
The listing
- What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 2 buildingss as contributing to the listing.
- Address. 200 E. Front St., Waterville, 66548
- When was it listed? October 2008
- Category. building
- Also known as. Theaters and Opera Houses of Kansas MPS
- Township. Waterville township
- Architectural style. Prairie School architecture
- National Register reference number. 08000984 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.
Fires near this property
16 since 2015Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 16 fires within 5 miles of Waterville Opera House between 2015 and 2020, burning about 116 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 | 13 |
| Debris and open burning | 3 |
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 August 2018 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Kansas Forest Service | 2018015 |
| 9 May 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2.0 acres | Kansas Forest Service | not named |
| 8 April 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 20 acres | Kansas Forest Service | not named |
| 16 April 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 10 acres | Kansas Forest Service | not named |
| 11 April 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 15 acres | Kansas Forest Service | 2015017 |
| 1 April 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Kansas Forest Service | 2015015 |
| 22 March 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Kansas Forest Service | 2015013 |
| 17 March 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2.0 acres | Kansas Forest Service | 2015010 |
Storms near this property
51 since 1993Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Waterville, the town this property stands in, in 51 storm reports between 1993 and 2026: 26 thunderstorm wind, 25 hail. 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 2004 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | $30,000 | Strong winds blew down 13 power line poles near Waterville. |
| July 2004 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | $15,000 | Strong winds blew the roof off of a warehouse in Waterville. Trees were also blow over, one knocking off a street light. |
| June 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | $10,000 | Trained spotters throughout Marshall County reported 80 mph wind gusts. Large trees were damaged and house windows blew out in Waterville. In Blue Rapids structural damage to homes was reported. In Vermillion, portions of a school roof was blown off. And in Axtell, an 18 foot diameter tree branch snapped. |
| June 2009 | Hail | Waterville | $4,000 | A trained spotter reported that quarter sized hail broke several windows out of a nearby home. The hail was wind driven as reported by the spotter. |
| May 1998 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | $4,000 | no account filed |
| August 2003 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | $3,000 | Strong winds blew a few power poles down. |
| April 2026 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | - | A barn was heavily damaged. This was a delayed report. |
| June 2023 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | - | Power lines down in Waterville. |
| September 2023 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | - | Wind gust of 70 mph reported. |
| June 2022 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | - | Report of an empty grain bin flipped and thrown. |
| June 2022 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | - | Report of a 65 mph wind gust. |
| April 2022 | Hail | Waterville | - | Nickel sized hail reported. |
| June 2022 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | - | Delayed report for storm survey on June 12. Large tree limbs of 12 inches in diameter snapped off. Winds estimated at 80 mph. |
| June 2022 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | - | Highway 77 closed west of Blue Rapids due to power lines blown down along the highway. |
| June 2022 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | - | Tree limbs 12 inches in diameter blown down. |
| July 2021 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | - | Report of 60 mph wind gust. |
| July 2019 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | - | Estimated wind gust report. |
| July 2019 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | - | Several trees were reported down. |
| July 2019 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | - | Large tree branches broken, up to 3 inches in diameter. Time was estimated from radar. |
| June 2018 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | - | Several trees and large branches down. |
| June 2018 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | - | Large tree branches were reported down. Sizes were unknown. |
| June 2018 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | - | Delayed report of a grain storage bin buckling at the local elevator. A tin roof on a shed was blown off as well. |
| April 2016 | Hail | Waterville | - | Photo evidence of hail at least 3 inches in diameter. |
| April 2016 | Hail | Waterville | - | Windows were broken out of home. |
| July 2015 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | - | There was a 5 inch diameter healthy maple tree limb down. |
| May 2013 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | - | Three trailers flipped over and 6 inch tree limb through the side of a house. |
| June 2008 | Hail | Waterville | - | Several reports of quarter size hail. |
| June 2008 | Hail | Waterville | - | Report relayed by nssl shave project. Hail stone measured four inches by one and a half inches. Smaller, non severe hail fell for several minutes on either side of the large hail report. |
| June 2008 | Hail | Waterville | - | Report relayed by nssl shave project. The size of the hail stone was estimated based on the fact that the citizen found golf ball size hail on the ground twenty minutes after it stopped hailing. Smaller, non-severe hail fell for several minutes on either side of the large hail stones. The citizen also reported that 2.20 inches of rain had fallen. |
| June 2008 | Hail | Waterville | - | Several public reports of two and a half inch to two and three quarter inch hail in the Waterville area collected by the nssl shave project. Smaller, non-severe hail for several minutes on either side of the time for the larger hail stones. |
| May 2005 | Hail | Waterville | - | Quarter size hail covered the ground along U.S. Highway 77. |
| April 2017 | Hail | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| April 2016 | Hail | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| April 2016 | Hail | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| April 2016 | Hail | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| April 2016 | Hail | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| October 2016 | Hail | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| June 2010 | Hail | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| June 2008 | Hail | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| June 2008 | Hail | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| June 2006 | Hail | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| July 2004 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| April 2001 | Hail | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| June 1999 | Hail | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| June 1998 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| July 1997 | Hail | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| May 1997 | Hail | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| May 1997 | Hail | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| June 1996 | Hail | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| June 1996 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| May 1993 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | - | no account filed |
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 milesOther 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Weaver Hotel | under 500 feet | 1975 |
 | Samuel Powell House | 0.5 miles | 1972 |
 | Blue Rapids Library | 4.8 miles | 1972 |
 | Alcove Springs | 5.5 miles | 1972 |
 | Alcove Spring (Boundary Increase) | 5.9 miles | 2013 |
Sources for this property
| National Archives record | The nomination case file for reference 08000984 in Record Group 79. |
| Marshall County | All 22 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.