Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1979. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
one of 21 National Register listings in Wood County · listed in 1979 · category: Building · one of 1 National Historic Landmarks in Wood County.
Architectural style. Queen Anne style architecture in the United States
Architect. Q5321640
National Register reference number.79001982- 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
1 since 2002
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 1 fire within 5 miles of Kerr, Benjamin F., House between
2002 and 2002, burning about 0 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
Recreation and ceremony
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. Museums hold 504 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Kerr, Benjamin F., House between 1860 and
1974: 458 Animalia, 41 Plantae, 3 Fungi, 1 Unrecorded, 1 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A. D. Selby, Bureau of Fisheries, Campbell, L. W. (Louis W.) and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Grand Rapids, the town this property stands in, in 9 storm reports between 2007 and 2024: 5 thunderstorm wind, 3 flood, 1 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.
Thunderstorm downburst winds estimated to be at least 60 mph caused damage throughout northern Wood County. Damage was reported from the Grand Rapids area northeast across Perrysburg Township to near Millbury in the northeast corner of the county. Several barns and outbuildings were damaged in the Dowling area and a mobile home in Millbury was heavily damaged. Several homes south of Perrysburg sustained damage from fallen trees. At least one home in Rossford also sustained damage. Hundreds of trees and limbs along with a few utility poles were downed across northern Wood County. Scattered power outages were reported.
The Maumee River flooded it's banks in the city of Grand Rapids in late June due to several days of heavy rain across the entire Maumee Basin. The river crested at 19.2 feet in moderate flood stage around 8 pm on the 29th. Several businesses in downtown Grand Rapids were inundated with a few inches of water. West, Beach, and Front Streets were the most impacted. Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce said of this flooding that this was the most significant non-winter flood event Grand Rapids has ever experienced.
Heavy rain and rapid snow melt led to a flooding over Grand Rapids in Wood County. Around two inches of rainfall fell on six inches of heavy snow was on the ground. This snow rapidly melted as temperatures warmed into the 50s on the 28th. Up to an additional inch of water equivalent rainfall was released from the melted snow. Small streams and creeks overran their banks, flooding low lying portions of Grand Rapids. Backup in the town storm water and sewer systems were reported to have caused some of the flooding issued as well. The only property damage reported was minor basement flooding.
Maumee River at Grand Rapids rose above moderate flood stage cresting just over 18.0 feet. At this level Mary Jane Thurston Park and a residance near the river flooded. Some backwater to storm water drainage resulted in water issues in town, but no property was impacted as a result.
2 papers published in this town,
digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read: 0 issues,
0 pages. Every page is searchable, so a name or a street can be
looked for directly in what the town printed about itself at the time.
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.
From the nomination file
2,247 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
The B. F. Kerr House is a 2-story, brick Queen Anne Style residence, which is currently dential section, overlooking the village of Grand Rapids, about two blocks south of the bargeboard , which is simply pierced by small round holes, with a trefoil cut out at the there is a wide, pediment-shaped board with incised decoration at the gable base. The southern roof gable is covered with lap slates, which surround a central window (originally from the rear hipped reofs, while a semi-lunar fan rises like an eyebrow window over the There is a central tower over the main entrance, capped by twin, tin finials. The bay with a small, non-functional, porch, with wooden knobs at either end.
Under this bay first story windows feature red plaster, scored with diagonal lines of white, immediately south side porch floor had to be rebuilt, as it had been removed, leaving the posts hang- which support the broad, slate covered, porch roofs. There is a band of carved circular CONDITION EXCELLENT UNALTERED business district. DETERIORATED RUINS currently being exactly reproduced, including the round spheres at the ends of each railing. ornaments around the center of each post. XGOOD southern side porch.
House (National Register) in Toledo. Master Toledo architect Edward O. Fallis, father of served in the Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and in the Atlanta campaign during the Civil War, and assisted as quartermaster clerk at Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, and later at the until 1950. 1885 1500-1599 1400-1499 dis-repair. INVENTION ARCHEOLOGY-HISTORIC EDUCATION ECONOMICS SIGNIFICANCE COMMUNICATIONS BUILDER/ARCHITECT COMMERCE CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE PREHISTORIC ART PERIOD THEATER LITERATURE INDUSTRY _POLITICS/GOVERNMENT itional features based upon earlier architectural styles.
_PHILOSOPHY 1900- The Benjamin F.Kerr House is architecturally significant to Northwest Ohio.It is an _EXPLORATION/SETTLEMENT XARCHITECTURE restoring and renovating the structure as a health retreat.Many exterior and interior _SCULPTURE SOCIAL/HUMANITARIAN Anne house,built about 1885,is the only residence associated with this Kerr family, design of the Kerr House.
'picture-type' windows and the placement of the tower over the main entrance are trans- _TRANSPORTATION _ENGINEERING - MILITARY Goods store on Front Street after the devastating fire of 1898,which carried his name businesses were known throughout Northwest Ohio.Kerr died in 190l.The large Queen -1700-1799 and was sequentially owned by Kerr's son, Clifton C., and his grandson, Clifton F.,as _RELIGION MUSIC excellent example of an early Queen Anne style residence. The irregular plan, tower, molded the "Cottage System' of turn-of-the century mental hospitals, was responsible for the National Cemetary in Chattanooga.
In 1866 he arrived in Grand Rapids, and purchased the chimneys, and 'wrap around' verandah all typify the Queen Anne style; the lack of large true Queen Anne residence in Grand Rapids, and compares in quality to the Dr. John A. Wright grain elevators near Grand Rapids. Kerr was a village councilman, and built a new Dry For 30 years, Benjamin F.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 79001982, 28 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
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.
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.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
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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