Built in 1887. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.
From the record
“The Nelson Farm is a historic farmstead in rural Merrick County, in the east central part of the state of Nebraska in the Midwestern United States. Originally settled by Swedish immigrants in 1879, it was expanded and improved over the subsequent eighty years and more, remaining in the founder's family into the fourth and fifth generations.”
Wikipedia article Nelson Farm, Nebraska, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 8 National Register listings published here for Merrick County · listed in 2009 · category: District · built in 1887.
National Register reference number.09000650- 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
17 since 2007
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 17 fires within 5 miles of Nelson Farm
between 2007 and 2017, burning about 30 acres in total. 2 started naturally. 1 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
Debris and open burning
6
Railroad operations and maintenance
5
Equipment and vehicle use
2
Natural
2
Fireworks
1
Arson/incendiarism
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Central City, the town this property stands in, in 74 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 43 hail, 19 thunderstorm wind, 5 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.
A tornado touched down near the Platte River three miles south of Central City and then moved north to the east edge of town where it lifted back into the clouds. Outbuildings were damaged and tree tops were twisted off at three separate farms. The tornado blew the roof off of an auto body shop on the east edge of town.
A tornado touched down in rural portions of Merrick County a few miles northwest of Central City, with a maximum estimated wind speed of 80 MPH along a 4-mile path. The most noteworthy damage occurred at a large cattle company feedlot, where a large portion of a roof was blown off of a confinement barn, several outdoor pens and livestock shades were destroyed, and a few head of cattle were injured and had to be euthanized. In addition, several irrigation pivots were overturned. Some tree damage was also noted along the path of the tornado. At one farmstead, the home suffered gutter damage and an unoccupied tractor parked nearby had its windows blown out. There was also some hail damage to crops in roughly a 2x2 mile area.
Wind gusts estimated at 70 MPH resulted in tree damage in Central City as well as in the Willow Bend Lake area. The main tree damage occurred in the Willow Bend Lake area, where large tree limbs were knocked down and a 90 foot tree was uprooted, clipping the corner of the roof of a nearby home. Boats were also pulled loose from structures on the shore.
A wind gust of 65 MPH was measured by a mesonet station located two miles south-southeast of Central City. Tree damage was reported in Central City, including a few larger downed branches.
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.
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.
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