St. Wenceslaus Roman Catholic Church

Built in 1863 (Gothic Revival). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

From the record

“Wenceslaus Roman Catholic Church, also known as the Island Church, was built around 1863 by settlers on an island of high ground in the Blue Joint Marsh a couple miles southeast of Waterloo, Wisconsin. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.”
Wikipedia article St. Wenceslaus Church, Wisconsin, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 52 National Register listings published here for Jefferson County · listed in 1975 · category: Building · built in 1863, Gothic Revival.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service · the Wikipedia article

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. SE of Waterloo at jct. of Blue Point and Island Rds., Waterloo, 53594
When was it listed? May 1975
Category. building
Town. Waterloo town
When was it built? 1863
Architectural style. Gothic Revival
National Register reference number. 75000070 - 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

15 since 2003

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 15 fires within 5 miles of St. Wenceslaus Roman Catholic Church between 2003 and 2020, burning about 459 acres in total. None started naturally. 3 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
Debris and open burning	7
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	5
Arson/incendiarism	3

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
9 May 2020	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	137
19 May 2018	Arson/incendiarism	1.0 acres	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	128
29 April 2018	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	107
24 April 2018	Debris and open burning	3.0 acres	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	101
15 April 2019	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	92
14 April 2003	Arson/incendiarism	290 acres	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
14 April 2003	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
12 April 2011	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named

Every fire recorded in Jefferson County

Mines and quarries near this property

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of St. Wenceslaus Roman Catholic Church: 1 past producer, 1 unknown. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Duwe Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
	Marlin Shalitzly Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Unknown

Every working recorded in Jefferson County

Storms near this property

40 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Waterloo, the town this property stands in, in 40 storm reports between 1995 and 2026: 16 hail, 15 thunderstorm wind, 2 lightning, 2 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.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
August 2018	Flash Flood	Waterloo	$943,000	Approximately 100 911 calls related to flash flooding in Watertown. Numerous streets in Watertown flooded and closed. Some neighborhoods completely flooded with streets, yards, and driveways filled with water. Basement flooding common. A portion of Jefferson Rd. washed out at the bridge where a creek flows into the nearby Rock River. Other road damage or washouts as well. Three vehicle water rescues involving 4 citizens performed by the fire department. A section of track ballast was washed away compromising the railroad ties and tracks. The flooding caused a sanitary sewer overflow/bypass around 10 AM. Additional street flooding and basement flooding in Waterloo, Ixonia, and northern Jefferson County with some city streets and county roads closed and damaged. Overall, 93 homes sustained affected damage and 66 homes with minor damage. 5 businesses also sustained minor damage.
July 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Waterloo	$175,000	no account filed
May 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Waterloo	$100,000	The public reported numerous trees and power lines downed by thunderstorm wind gusts estimated at 75 mph (65 knots). The damage, in a 6-mile wide swath from 2 miles south of Waterloo to 2.5 miles east of Ixonia, included the destruction of a large pole barn, which had 4-inch by 4-inch support posts ripped out of the ground by the winds. Other homes, barns and sheds were reported to be damaged by the severe thunderstorm wind gusts.
April 2026	Thunderstorm Wind	Waterloo	$80,000	A swath of scattered tree, power line, and structural damage across northern Jefferson County. This included many uprooted and snapped trees, power lines down, and fallen trees on vehicles especially in Waterloo and Watertown. Eight power poles were snapped on East Clarkson Rd. in Waterloo. A farm on highway B east of Johnson Creek suffered severe silo damage, and a grove of trees were knocked down nearby.
July 1997	Lightning	Waterloo	$50,000	Lightning struck a home causing significant damage to the second story.
July 1997	Lightning	Waterloo	$50,000	A bolt of lightning struck a home, starting a fire that made the upper story unlivable until repair.
June 2024	Tornado (EF0)	Waterloo	$25,000	An EF-1 rated tornado developed south of Marshall near Highway 73, proceeding northwestward, damaging several farms and large areas of trees, before dissipating on the south side of Waterloo. This portion of the path was toward the end of the tornado and didn't do too much additional damage in Jefferson county besides a few trees being uprooted.
September 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Waterloo	$15,000	Law enforcement officials reported damage from severe thunderstorm wind gusts estimated at 65 knots (75 mph) in a 3-mile wide swath from Waterloo to northeast of Ixonia. The damaging winds downed numerous trees and power lines.
June 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Waterloo	$10,000	A large tree was snapped at the trunk as a bow echo moved through northern Jefferson county.
July 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Waterloo	$10,000	Sporadic trees and power lines down throughout the county.
July 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Waterloo	$10,000	Trees down throughout the county, including a couple large trees down just southwest of Palmyra. Wires down in Aztalan and Lake Mills.
June 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Waterloo	$10,000	The Jefferson County Emergency Manager reported many trees and power lines were blown down in Waterloo from damaging thunderstorm wind gusts that were estimated up to 65 mph ( knots).
February 2018	Flood	Waterloo	$5,000	Widespread flooding of lowland and agricultural land including some roads.
July 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Waterloo	$5,000	Trees and power lines down.
June 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Waterloo	$1,000	Multiple reports of 2-3 inch branches down in downtown Waterloo.
June 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Waterloo	$1,000	Downed branches around 1.75-2.75 inches in diameter.
July 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Waterloo	$1,000	no account filed
July 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Waterloo	$700	no account filed
April 2026	Hail	Waterloo	-	Public report of 1 inch diameter hail in Waterloo.
April 2026	Hail	Waterloo	-	Trained spotter reports 1 inch diameter hail in Waterloo.
March 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Waterloo	-	Several reports of tree and powerline damage in the Waterloo area.
August 2018	Flood	Waterloo	-	Flooded roads, yards, fields, and basements continued the remainder of the day with some improvement after 5 to 8 inches of rain. The cities of Watertown and Waterloo were most impacted by the flood waters. The Rock River in Watertown briefly reached minor flood stage from 11:10 AM CST to 12:00 PM CST. Lowland areas and parks near the Rock River were flooded throughout northern Jefferson County.
July 2010	Tornado (EF0)	Waterloo	-	An EF0 tornado began about 3.5 miles southwest of Waterloo on Veith Road, about a mile west of the intersection of VeIth Road and CTH O. The tornado moved east-southeast before dissipating just east of STH 89, about 2 miles north of the interchange of STH 89 and I-94. Damage was mostly to trees along an intermittent path, which averaged 20 yards in width. No structural damage was found. The EF-rating was based on DI 27 (TH) DOD2 which suggests maximum winds speeds of 65 mph. The exact start location is Lat 43.135917 and Lon -89.013528. The exact end location is 43.120889 and Lon -88.901667.
October 2023	Hail	Waterloo	-	no account filed
July 2010	Funnel Cloud	Waterloo	-	no account filed
June 2008	Hail	Waterloo	-	no account filed
July 2007	Hail	Waterloo	-	no account filed
May 2006	Hail	Waterloo	-	no account filed
August 2006	Hail	Waterloo	-	no account filed
March 2005	Hail	Waterloo	-	no account filed
May 2005	Hail	Waterloo	-	no account filed
May 2005	Hail	Waterloo	-	no account filed
March 2004	Hail	Waterloo	-	no account filed
August 2003	Heavy Rain	Waterloo	-	no account filed
June 2001	Hail	Waterloo	-	no account filed
September 2001	Hail	Waterloo	-	no account filed
March 2000	Hail	Waterloo	-	no account filed
June 1999	Hail	Waterloo	-	no account filed
June 1995	Hail	Waterloo	-	no account filed
August 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Waterloo	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Jefferson 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

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.

Property	Distance	Listed
City of Waterloo Carousel	3.5 miles	1997
Waterloo Downtown Historic District	3.8 miles	2000
Enoch J. Fargo House	5.6 miles	1982
L. D. Fargo Public Library	5.6 miles	1982
Mulberry Street Residential Historic District	5.7 miles	2019
Lake Mills Downtown Commercial Historic District	5.7 miles	2019

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 75000070 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Jefferson County	All 52 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.