Mills Community House

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

From the record

“The Mills Community House, also known as the Mills Cottage and the Benzonia Public Library, is a former dormitory located at 891 Michigan Avenue in Benzonia, Michigan. It is significant for its association with Bruce Catton, who lived there when his father was president of Benzonia Academy.”
Wikipedia article Mills Community House, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 9 National Register listings published here for Benzie County · listed in 1972 · category: Building.

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.
Address. 891 Michigan Ave., Benzonia, 49616
When was it listed? August 1972
Category. building
Township. Benzonia township
National Register reference number. 72000593 - 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 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 12 fires within 5 miles of Mills Community House between 1994 and 2020, burning about 19 acres in total. 1 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	6
Debris and open burning	3
Equipment and vehicle use	2
Natural	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
25 August 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	BENZONIA TOWNSHIP FD 19034 - 2019
13 August 2001	Debris and open burning	3.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	not named
30 June 2007	Debris and open burning	1.5 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	not named
5 May 2004	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	not named
27 May 2006	Debris and open burning	5.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	not named
20 May 2018	Natural	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	HOMESTEAD TOWNSHIP FD 0003636 - 2018
18 May 2009	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	BENZIE 02
18 April 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	FRANKFORT-ELBERTA VFD 0000026 - 2020

Every fire recorded in Benzie County

Storms near this property

4 since 2003

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Benzonia, the town this property stands in, in 4 storm reports between 2003 and 2019: 3 hail, 1 thunderstorm wind. 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 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Benzonia	-	A large tree was downed.
May 2019	Hail	Benzonia	-	no account filed
June 2007	Hail	Benzonia	-	no account filed
October 2006	Hail	Benzonia	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Benzie 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
Benzie County Courthouse	0.6 miles	1996
Gwen Frostic Studio	1.8 miles	2021
CITY OF MILWAUKEE	6.7 miles	1990
Frankfort Land Company House	6.8 miles	1995
Navigation Structures at Frankfort Harbor	7.2 miles	1997
Watervale Historic District	7.3 miles	2003

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 72000593 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Benzie County	All 9 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.
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.