Farmers Mutual Reinsurance Company Building Grinnell, Iowa

Text courtesy of the National Register of Historic Places, a program of the National Parks Service. Minor transcription errors or changes in formatting may have occurred; please see the Nomination Form PDF for official text. Some information may have become outdated since the property was nominated for the Register.

The Farmers Mutual Reinsurance Company Building is individually locally significant for its architectural merit (Criterion C) and for its association with commercial history (Criterion A). It is historically significant under Criterion A under the context of commerce, for its direct association with the successful growth of the Farmers Mutual Reinsurance Company. The initial construction and early enlargement of this building directly interprets the rapid post-World War II growth and diversification of Iowa's premier reinsurance company. The company's early Grinnell years, beginning in 1938, required simple upstairs rented quarters and indeed, when this new building was first occupied, only half of the new building actually housed company offices. The original new building trebled the company's space and within six years the building had to be doubled in size and was then completely occupied by the reinsurance company. This building also represents the post-World War II northward expansion of Grinnell's downtown. All of the major modernistic office building designs were necessarily built in the same one-block area of that expansion, between 5th Avenue and U. S. Highway 6 (6th Avenue) to the north.