Sterling District No. 5 Schoolhouse

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. 9 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1900.

From the record

“Sterling District No. 5 Schoolhouse is a historic school building located at Sterling in Cayuga County, New York. It was built about 1853 and is a two-story hewn timber frame building with a front-facing gable roof, built above a mortared rubble stone foundation.”
Wikipedia article Sterling District No. 5 Schoolhouse, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 71 National Register listings published here for Cayuga County · listed in 2002 · 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. NY104A, Sterling, 13156
When was it listed? October 2002
Category. building
Town. Sterling town
National Register reference number. 02001119 - 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

117 since 2000

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 117 fires within 5 miles of Sterling District No. 5 Schoolhouse between 2000 and 2020, burning about 85 acres in total. 4 started naturally. 23 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	59
Arson/incendiarism	23
Debris and open burning	18
Other causes	5
Equipment and vehicle use	4
Natural	4
Smoking	2
Recreation and ceremony	2

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
23 September 2013	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	N/A
2 September 2003	Natural	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
1 September 2012	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
7 August 2012	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
6 August 2005	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
29 August 2007	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
26 August 2010	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
25 August 2013	Natural	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	N/A

Every fire recorded in Cayuga 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 Sterling District No. 5 Schoolhouse: 3 past producers. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Iron. 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	Recorded
Fair Haven Iron Company Property	Iron	Past Producer
Furnaceville Iron Co.	Iron	Past Producer	1887
Swartout Opening	Iron	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Cayuga County

Storms near this property

7 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Sterling, the town this property stands in, in 7 storm reports between 1993 and 2024: 5 thunderstorm wind, 2 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
August 1993	Thunderstorm Wind	Sterling	$50,000	no account filed
July 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Sterling	$15,000	Law enforcement reported downed trees blocking roads.
September 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Sterling	$15,000	Law enforcement reported trees and wires down.
August 2008	Hail	Sterling	$15,000	no account filed
April 2009	Hail	Sterling	$10,000	no account filed
August 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Sterling	$2,000	Trees and wires downed in Sterling.
May 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Sterling	$1,000	Powerlines down near Sterling Nature Center.

Every storm recorded in Cayuga County

Maps showing this location

9 surveys

United States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.

1900 USGS Oswego quadrangle1:62500 - 8 printings
1943 USGS Fair Haven quadrangle1:31680
1943 USGS Fair Haven quadrangle1:24000
1954 USGS Fair Haven quadrangle1:24000 - 3 printings
1960 USGS Oswego quadrangle1:62500 - 2 printings
1960 USGS Rochester quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1961 USGS Rochester quadrangle1:250000 - 3 printings
1965 USGS Rochester quadrangle1:250000
1985 USGS Syracuse quadrangle1:100000 - 3 printings

Listed places nearby

2 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	Property	Distance	Listed
	Sterling Grist Mill Complex	0.1 miles	2002
	Cottage Farm	2.9 miles	2012

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 02001119 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Cayuga County	All 71 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.