Judge Columbia Lancaster House

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

From the record

“The Judge Columbia Lancaster House is a large house on the National Register of Historic Places in Ridgefield, Washington in the Southern Colonial style. Constructed from 1850 to 1855, it is named for Columbia Lancaster and is one of the oldest frame houses in Washington State.”
Wikipedia article Judge Columbia Lancaster House, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 45 National Register listings published here for Clark County · listed in 1975 · 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.
Listed as. Lancaster, Judge Columbia, House - the National Register files a house under its owner's surname.
Address. N of Ridgefield on Lancaster Rd., Ridgefield, 98642
When was it listed? February 1975
Category. building
Census division. Ridgefield
Architectural style. Greek Revival architecture
National Register reference number. 75001843 - 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

91 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 91 fires within 5 miles of Judge Columbia Lancaster House between 1992 and 2020, burning about 86 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 5 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	22
Debris and open burning	18
Recreation and ceremony	12
Misuse of fire by a minor	10
Equipment and vehicle use	8
Smoking	8
Arson/incendiarism	5
Fireworks	4
Other causes	3
Natural	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
8 September 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	BRATTON
8 September 1999	Smoking	under an acre	Columbia City Unit	SMITH ROAD #1
3 September 2006	Misuse of fire by a minor	5.0 acres	Columbia City Unit	PITTSBURG RD.
3 September 1998	Smoking	1.0 acres	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	not named
3 September 1998	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Columbia City Unit	HANKEY ROAD #1
28 September 2014	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.3 acres	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	18 HUB
28 September 1999	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	not named
27 September 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Oregon Department of Forestry Salem Headquarters	OLD PORTLAND/KASTER#3

Every fire recorded in Clark County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 21 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 21 workings within 5 miles of Judge Columbia Lancaster House: 16 past producers, 4 producers, 1 occurrence. 4 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Stone, Crushed/Broken, 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
Fly Creek Deposit	Aluminum	Occurrence
R B Muffet Brick and Tile Co	Clay	Past Producer
B and S Rock Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Columbia County	Stone	Past Producer
Columbia County	Stone	Past Producer
Columbia County	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Dwight Irby	Stone	Past Producer
Dwight Irby	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
St. Helens Quarry and Plant	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Waters Concrete Products Inc.	Stone	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Clark County

Storms near this property

8 since 2004

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Ridgefield, the town this property stands in, in 8 storm reports between 2004 and 2013: 4 thunderstorm wind, 1 hail, 1 tornado, 1 lightning. 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
April 2004	Hail	Ridgefield	$7,500	no account filed
May 2005	Lightning	Ridgefield	$6,000	Scattered thunderstorms produced heavy rain over the area. A storm near Ridgefield, WA produced heavy rains, sending 6 to 8 inches of water into a pump station. During that same storm, a lightning strike hit the pump station, burning out a control panel and disabling the station.
September 2013	Flood	Ridgefield	-	A total of 9.54 inches was measured at Rock Creek from September 28, 2013 through September 30, 2013 which caused local flooding.
June 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Ridgefield	-	A wind gust knocked power lines down, and resulted in quite a lot of tree debris on the road.
June 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Ridgefield	-	A few wind-fallen trees were blocking a roadway.
September 2004	Tornado (F0)	Ridgefield	-	A tornado ripped through the Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge, lifting and damaging a mobile home office, blowing down trees and snapping large tree limbs. A tree was blown down on top of a car.
September 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Ridgefield	-	Strong thunderstorms moved through Clark county generating strong winds. The Clark County Emergency Manager reported numerous trees were blown down at the Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge.
April 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Ridgefield	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Clark 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

5 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
Basalt Cobblestone Quarries District	1.8 miles	1981
William Henry Shobert House	3.6 miles	1979
Arndt Prune Dryer	6.4 miles	1979
Lambert School	6.6 miles	1989
Sara Store	7.6 miles	1995

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 75001843 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Clark County	All 45 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.