Center Avenue Historic District

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.

From the record

One of 6 National Register listings published here for Lincoln County · listed in 1994 · category: District.

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

The listing

Address. Roughly bounded by Cedar, Park, Third, Center and Seventh Sts., Merrill, 54452
When was it listed? June 1994
Category. district
City. Merrill city
National Register reference number. 94000600 - 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

137 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 137 fires within 5 miles of Center Avenue Historic District between 1992 and 2020, burning about 200 acres in total. None started naturally. 9 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	40
Equipment and vehicle use	38
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	23
Arson/incendiarism	9
Recreation and ceremony	6
Power generation/transmission/distribution	6
Other causes	6
Smoking	4
Fireworks	3
Misuse of fire by a minor	2

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 2003	Equipment and vehicle use	1.4 acres	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
7 September 1998	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
5 September 2005	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
21 September 1998	Other causes	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
11 September 2007	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
31 August 2020	Power generation/transmission/distribution	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	POPPIN POPPLE
11 August 1998	Equipment and vehicle use	5.6 acres	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
9 July 2008	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named

Every fire recorded in Lincoln County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 13 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 13 workings within 5 miles of Center Avenue Historic District: 5 producers, 4 past producers, 3 unknowns, 1 occurrence. 5 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Stone, Granite. 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
County Line Creek Granite Deposit	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Occurrence
Gravel Pit	Stone	Unknown
Merrill Granite Quarry	Granite	Past Producer
Big Eddy Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Bracks Sand Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
County Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Unknown
George Peterson Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
George Peterson Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Harold Kleinschmidt Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Klade Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Every working recorded in Lincoln County

Storms near this property

60 of 84 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Merrill, the town this property stands in, in 84 storm reports between 1995 and 2025: 34 thunderstorm wind, 33 hail, 5 tornado, 4 heavy rain. 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	Tornado (F2)	Merrill	$500,000	no account filed
May 1996	Lightning	Merrill	$150,000	no account filed
July 2002	Tornado (F0)	Merrill	$100,000	no account filed
July 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	$25,000	no account filed
August 1996	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	$25,000	no account filed
July 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	$10,000	Thunderstorm winds downed trees and power lines in Merrill and several locations in southeast Lincoln County. One of the trees landed on a car on East Main Street in Merrill.
July 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	$10,000	no account filed
July 2002	Tornado (F0)	Merrill	$5,000	no account filed
May 1996	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	$5,000	no account filed
July 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	$3,000	no account filed
June 2017	Flood	Merrill	$2,000	Heavy rainfall from thunderstorms caused minor street flooding in Merrill.
July 1997	Lightning	Merrill	$2,000	no account filed
July 1997	Hail	Merrill	$2,000	no account filed
September 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	$1,000	no account filed
July 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	-	Thunderstorm winds downed several trees in Pine River. The time of this report is an estimate based on radar data.
May 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	-	Thunderstorm winds downed several trees in Merrill. The time of this report is an estimate based on radar data.
July 2023	Hail	Merrill	-	Penny size hail fell in Merrill.
August 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	-	Thunderstorm winds downed trees in Merrill. The time of this report is an estimate based on radar data.
August 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	-	Thunderstorm winds downed trees and power lines in Merrill. The time of this report is an estimate based on radar data.
May 2021	Hail	Merrill	-	Nickel size hail fell in Merrill.
July 2021	Tornado (EF1)	Merrill	-	A tornado formed at 8:40 PM CDT near Pine River in southern Lincoln County and produced damage to dozens of trees, (DI 28, DOD 2,3,4), continuing south and entering Marathon County at 8:42 PM CDT. Total path length is estimated to be 2.68 miles long, with a width of 300 yards. Peak wind estimated to be 90 mph.
July 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	-	Thunderstorm winds downed numerous trees and power lines in Merrill. The time of this event is an estimate based on radar data.
July 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	-	Thunderstorm winds downed multiple trees, tore a roof off a barn, and shredded corn fields. The time of this event is an estimate based on radar data.
September 2020	Hail	Merrill	-	Quarter size hail fell near Merrill.
September 2020	Hail	Merrill	-	Half dollar size hail fell near Merrill.
September 2020	Hail	Merrill	-	Quarter size hail fell in Merrill.
September 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	-	Thunderstorm winds downed trees in Merrill. The time of this event is an estimate based on radar data.
August 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	-	Thunderstorm winds snapped several tree limbs in Merrill.
September 2018	Flood	Merrill	-	Heavy rainfall from thunderstorms flooded streets in Merrill.
August 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	-	Thunderstorm winds downed multiple trees and power lines in Merrill. The time of this report was estimated using radar data.
May 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	-	Thunderstorm wind downed several trees just south of Merrill.
April 2017	Hail	Merrill	-	Thunderstorms produced nickel size hail and wind gusts to 50 mph as they passed through Merrill.
June 2017	Hail	Merrill	-	Nickel size hail fell near Merrill.
June 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	-	Thunderstorm winds downed a few trees in Merrill.
July 2017	Hail	Merrill	-	Penny size hail fell south of Merrill.
June 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	-	Thunderstorm winds, gusting to 58 mph, downed trees in Merrill.
August 2015	Hail	Merrill	-	Half dollar size hail fell in Merrill.
August 2015	Hail	Merrill	-	Quarter size hail fell in Merrill.
August 2015	Hail	Merrill	-	Half dollar size hail fell at the intersection of Highways 64 and 51.
August 2015	Hail	Merrill	-	Penny size hail fell southeast of Merrill.
September 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	-	Thunderstorm winds caused scattered tree damage in Merrill.
June 2013	Hail	Merrill	-	Thunderstorms produced quarter size hail in Merrill.
June 2013	Hail	Merrill	-	A thunderstorm produced quarter size hail in Merrill.
June 2013	Heavy Rain	Merrill	-	Heavy rainfall in and around Merrill caused street flooding. The AWOS at Merrill Municipal Airport recorded 1.77 inches of rain between 1555CST and 1655CST.
June 2012	Heavy Rain	Merrill	-	Heavy rain led to minor street flooding in Merrill.
June 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	-	Thunderstorm winds uprooted large trees in Merrill.
October 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	-	Thunderstorms produced wind gusts estimated as high as 60 mph in Merrill.
July 2011	Hail	Merrill	-	Thunderstorms produced quarter size hail in Merrill.
July 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	-	Law enforcement reported trees and power lines were knocked down near Merrill.
August 2011	Heavy Rain	Merrill	-	More than an inch of rain, 1.27 inches, fell in Merrill in 35 minutes.
July 2010	Heavy Rain	Merrill	-	Heavy rainfall in southern Lincoln County caused street flooding in Merrill. Law enforcement measured 1.72 inches of rain at Merrill. Merrill Municipal Airport recorded 1.93 inches of rain between 11:56 am and 12:55 pm CST and a spotter located about 8 miles west of Merrill measured 2.24 inches of rain in one hour ending at 12:47 pm CST.
April 2009	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	-	An estimated wind gust of 60 mph was reported on Fairview Road south of Merrill.
July 2008	Funnel Cloud	Merrill	-	A funnel cloud was spotted near Merrill.
June 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	-	Many trees and power lines down.
July 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Merrill	-	Straight-line thunderstorm winds, estimated at 50 to 60 mph across the southern part of the county, snapped a 16 inch diameter pine tree 2 feet above the ground.
May 2007	Hail	Merrill	-	no account filed
June 2007	Hail	Merrill	-	no account filed
June 2007	Hail	Merrill	-	no account filed
June 2007	Hail	Merrill	-	no account filed
June 2007	Hail	Merrill	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Lincoln 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
Lincoln County Courthouse	0.3 miles	1978
Merrill City Hall	0.5 miles	1978
Merrill Post Office	0.6 miles	2000
T. B. Scott Free Library	1.0 miles	1974
First Street Bridge	1.1 miles	1996

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 94000600 in Record Group 79.
Lincoln County	All 6 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.