Richard C. Smith House

Built in 1950. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

From the record

“Smith House is a small Usonian home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and constructed in Jefferson, Wisconsin in 1950. It is one of Wright's diamond module homes, a form he used in the Patrick and Margaret Kinney House, the E.”
Wikipedia article Richard C. Smith House, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 52 National Register listings published here for Jefferson County · listed in 1979 · category: Building · built in 1950, by Frank Lloyd Wright.

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. Smith, Richard C., House - the National Register files a house under its owner's surname.
Address. 332 E. Linden St., Jefferson, 53549
When was it listed? April 1979
Category. building
City. Jefferson city
When was it built? 1950
Architect. Frank Lloyd Wright
National Register reference number. 79000338 - 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

12 since 2014

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 12 fires within 5 miles of Richard C. Smith House between 2014 and 2020, burning about 256 acres in total. None started naturally. 1 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
Debris and open burning	5
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	5
Arson/incendiarism	1
Equipment and vehicle use	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
20 September 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	137
15 June 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	96
10 June 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	94
30 May 2014	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	JEFFERSON MARSH PEAT FIRE
2 May 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	69
2 May 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	68
7 April 2018	Debris and open burning	253 acres	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	JEFFERSON MARSH 1
26 March 2019	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	56

Every fire recorded in Jefferson County

Mines and quarries near this property

4 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 4 workings within 5 miles of Richard C. Smith House: 3 past producers, 1 producer. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, 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.

Site	Commodity	Status
Aztalan Township Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Schuth Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Strasburg Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Strasburg Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Jefferson County

Storms near this property

32 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Jefferson, the town this property stands in, in 32 storm reports between 1994 and 2023: 14 thunderstorm wind, 11 hail, 4 flood, 2 flash flood. 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
July 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Jefferson	$159,000	no account filed
June 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Jefferson	$75,000	A twenty by twenty foot section of Jefferson High School's roof was torn off. In addition, many large trees and power lines were knocked down in and around the city of Jefferson.
May 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Jefferson	$70,000	no account filed
August 2004	Flash Flood	Jefferson	$30,000	no account filed
May 1999	Flash Flood	Jefferson	$30,000	no account filed
June 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Jefferson	$25,000	Powerful thunderstorm winds toppled trees and resulted in damage to power-lines and cable-TV lines. Electrical customers were without power for several hours. Associated rain was described as going sideways in white sheets. Between Jeffeson and Helenville a couple roads were blocked with tree debris. About 2 inches of rain accompanied the storms.
April 2013	Flood	Jefferson	$10,000	The Rock River near Jefferson experienced moderate flooding, cresting at 12.31 feet, or 2.31 feet over the flood stage of 10 feet, at 658 AM CDT on April 20th. The river remained above flood stage into May.
August 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Jefferson	$6,000	Numerous trees and branches down in Jefferson.
June 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Jefferson	$6,000	no account filed
August 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Jefferson	$5,000	Multiple trees down across Jefferson.
October 2019	Flood	Jefferson	$5,000	The Rock River at Jefferson reached moderate flood stage, cresting at 11 feet the morning of October 12th. Floodwaters affect low lying areas of residential and business property in Jefferson. Water approaches the intersection of Main St. and E. Dane St. The retention pond at this intersection is full. South Center Ave. near the river is flooded and Riverview Drive near the wastewater plant is flooded. Riverfront Park is flooded.
March 2019	Flood	Jefferson	$5,000	The Rock River at Jefferson reached moderate flood stage, cresting at 11.5 feet the late morning of March 16th. Floodwaters affect low lying areas of residential and business property in Jefferson. Water approaches the intersection of Main St. and E. Dane St. South Center Ave. near the river is flooded and E. Riverview Drive near the wastewater plant is flooded and closed. Flooding in Riverfront Park.
September 2018	Flood	Jefferson	$5,000	The Rock River at Jefferson reached moderate flood stage, cresting at 11.72 feet the afternoon of September 8th. Floodwaters affect some low lying residences and businesses in Jefferson. Shallow floodwaters at the intersection of Main St. and E. Dane St., and nearby S. Center Ave. Riverview Drive near the wastewater plant is flooded and closed. Floodwaters affect portions of Highway K between Jefferson and Fort Atkinson.
August 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Jefferson	$5,000	Trees down in Jefferson and east of Jefferson.
October 1996	Thunderstorm Wind	Jefferson	$5,000	no account filed
July 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Jefferson	$4,000	Sporadic tree damage including power lines down from Jefferson to Fort Atkinson.
July 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Jefferson	$2,000	Twelve inch diamter tree down. Other branches down in the area.
September 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Jefferson	-	A National Weather Service employee reported a thunderstorm wind gust estimated at 56 knots (65 mph).
June 2022	Hail	Jefferson	-	no account filed
April 2017	Hail	Jefferson	-	no account filed
May 2011	Hail	Jefferson	-	no account filed
May 2011	Hail	Jefferson	-	no account filed
March 2007	Hail	Jefferson	-	no account filed
March 2007	Hail	Jefferson	-	no account filed
April 2006	Hail	Jefferson	-	no account filed
May 2004	Heavy Rain	Jefferson	-	no account filed
May 2004	Hail	Jefferson	-	no account filed
June 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Jefferson	-	no account filed
September 2000	Hail	Jefferson	-	no account filed
August 1998	Hail	Jefferson	-	no account filed
July 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Jefferson	-	no account filed
September 1994	Hail	Jefferson	-	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
Jefferson Fire Station	0.3 miles	1984
Emil and Flora Stoppenbach House	0.3 miles	2019
Jefferson Public Library	0.3 miles	1980
Main Street Commercial Historic District	0.3 miles	1998
Schweiger Industries Plant III	0.5 miles	2018
Copeland-Ryder Company	0.5 miles	1989

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 79000338 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.