Photograph by D.W.ENSIGN & CO, Public domain. Via
Wikimedia Commons.
Berrien Springs Courthouse
Built in 1838. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.
From the record
“The Berrien County Historic Courthouse Square, also known as the History Center at Courthouse Square, is the oldest town square in the Midwest and is a historic district located in Berrien Springs, Michigan. The complex is 1.6 acres and is home to five structures, two of which are the oldest of their kind in the state of Michigan, and include the 1839 Courthouse, Michigan's oldest Courthouse, and the 1829 Murdoch Cabin, Michigan's oldest two-story cabin.”
Wikipedia article Old Berrien County Courthouse Complex, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 32 National Register listings published here for Berrien County · listed in 1970 · category: Building · built in 1838.
National Register reference number.70000265- 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
23 since 2018
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 23 fires within 5 miles of Berrien Springs Courthouse
between 2018 and 2020, burning about 23 acres in total. 14 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
Natural
14
Equipment and vehicle use
6
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
3
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
2 workings within 5 miles of Berrien Springs Courthouse: 1 past producer, 1 producer.
1 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.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Berrien Springs, the town this property stands in, in 4 storm reports between 1993 and 1994: 2 thunderstorm wind, 2 hail.
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.
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
4 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.
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.
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