Peace Arch

Built in 1921 (Neoclassicism). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

From the record

“The Peace Arch is a monument situated near the westernmost point of the Canada-United States border in the contiguous United States, between the communities of Blaine, Washington and Surrey, British Columbia. Construction of the 20.5-metre (67 ft) tall arch was headed by American lawyer Sam Hill and dedicated in September 1921.”
Wikipedia article Peace Arch, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 74 National Register listings published here for Whatcom County · listed in 1996 · category: Object · built in 1921, Neoclassicism, by Harvey Wiley Corbett.

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 object as contributing to the listing.
Address. Peace Arch State Park, US 5 at the US--Canadian border, Blaine, 98230
When was it listed? December 1996
Category. object
Census division. Blaine
When was it built? 1921
Architectural style. Neoclassicism
Architect. Harvey Wiley Corbett
National Register reference number. 96001493 - 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

4 since 1999

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 4 fires within 5 miles of Peace Arch between 1999 and 2019, burning about 2 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
Smoking	1
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1
Recreation and ceremony	1
Other causes	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
12 September 2016	Smoking	1.5 acres	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	BLAINE 20
16 August 2011	Other causes	under an acre	Washington State Fire Marshal's Office	BIRCH POINT ROAD
18 June 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	BRIDGE
9 October 1999	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	not named

Every fire recorded in Whatcom County

Mines and quarries near this property

8 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 8 workings within 5 miles of Peace Arch: 8 past producers. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Diatomite. 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
Blain Pit	Diatomite	Past Producer
Bordstrom Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Colacurico Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Gilbert Iverson Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Loop Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Sonny's Excavation Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Unnamed Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Unnamed Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Whatcom County

Storms near this property

1 since 2013

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Blaine, the town this property stands in, in 1 storm report in 2013: 1 debris flow. 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
January 2013	Debris Flow	Blaine	$5,000	Heavy rain caused a mudslide near Semiahmoo Bay.

Every storm recorded in Whatcom 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

1 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
	MV PLOVER (ferry)	0.5 miles	1997

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 96001493 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Whatcom County	All 74 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.