Alma Downtown Historic District

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.

From the record

“The Alma Downtown Historic District is a commercial historic district in Alma, Michigan, roughly located along Superior Street between the Pine River and Prospect Avenue, and along State Street between Center and Downie Streets. Parts of the district were designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1975, and the entirety was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.”
Wikipedia article Alma Downtown Historic District (Alma, Michigan), CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 6 National Register listings published here for Gratiot County · listed in 2013 · category: District.

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

The listing

Address. Superior & State Sts., Alma, 48801
When was it listed? December 2013
Category. district
City. Alma city
National Register reference number. 13000904 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.

Fires near this property

9 since 2012

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 9 fires within 5 miles of Alma Downtown Historic District between 2012 and 2019, burning about 12 acres in total. 2 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	5
Natural	2
Recreation and ceremony	1
Smoking	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
18 September 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	MID-MICHIGAN COMMUNITY FD 0000289 - 2019
9 July 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	ITHACA FD 0000246 - 2019
7 July 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	ITHACA FD 0000237 - 2019
14 July 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	ALMA FD 0000136 - 2019
29 June 2012	Smoking	2.7 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	GRATIOT 01
28 April 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	ITHACA FD 0000161 - 2019
7 February 2019	Recreation and ceremony	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	ITHACA FD 0000056 - 2019
28 February 2018	Natural	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	ALMA FD 0000042 - 2018

Every fire recorded in Gratiot County

Mines and quarries near this property

3 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 3 workings within 5 miles of Alma Downtown Historic District: 2 past producers, 1 producer. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Bromine, Salt, Calcium, Magnesite, Clay. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Roslund Sand and Gravel	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
St Louis Tile Co Clay Pit	Clay	Past Producer
Velsicol Chem. Natural Brine Plant	Bromine, Salt, Calcium, Magnesite	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Gratiot County

Storms near this property

19 since 1999

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Alma, the town this property stands in, in 19 storm reports between 1999 and 2022: 12 thunderstorm wind, 7 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
June 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Alma	$25,000	no account filed
April 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Alma	$20,000	Power lines were blown down and there was damage to a garage roof in Riverdale.
September 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Alma	$15,000	no account filed
May 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Alma	$10,000	A trained spotter reported large trees and power lines down near Alma and estimated wind gusts of up to 70 to 75 mph.
February 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Alma	$10,000	Some trees and power lines were downed by strong winds.
June 2005	Hail	Alma	$10,000	no account filed
December 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Alma	$5,000	High winds ripped the siding off of a house.
May 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Alma	$5,000	Two trees were blown down in the city of Alma.
May 2006	Hail	Alma	$5,000	The public reported three quarters inch diameter hail in Ithaca and near Alma.
June 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Alma	$5,000	no account filed
May 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Alma	$2,000	Several large limbs were blown down in Alma by gusts estimated up to 60 mph.
April 2022	Hail	Alma	-	An isolated severe storm produced up to one inch diameter hail near Alma.
July 2014	Hail	Alma	-	One inch diameter hail was reported by a trained spotter near Alma.
July 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Alma	-	A peak wind gust of 59 mph was measured.
July 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Alma	-	Numerous trees were blown down in Alma.
July 2012	Hail	Alma	-	Up to one and three quarters inch hail was estimated by trained spotters in Alma.
July 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Alma	-	The 911 dispatch center in Alma reported that several trees and power lines were blown down across downtown Alma.
May 2007	Hail	Alma	-	A trained spotter two miles south of Alma reported three quarters inch diameter hail.
May 2007	Hail	Alma	-	A trained spotter in Alma reported three quarters inch diameter hail.

Every storm recorded in Gratiot 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

4 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
Wright Opera house Block Complex	under 500 feet	2013
Dr. Charles H. MacLachlan Sanitarium and House	4.4 miles	1982
Ithaca Downtown Historic District	6.7 miles	2005
Gratiot County Courthouse	6.8 miles	1976

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 13000904 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Gratiot County	All 6 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.