Photograph of Zeba Indian United Methodist Church — Photograph by Paul R. Burley, CC BY-SA 4.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Kewawenon Mission

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

From the record

“The Zeba Indian United Methodist Church is a religious building located at 227 Front Street in Zeba, Michigan, northeast of L'Anse. It marks the site of the Kewawenon Mission, built in 1832, which was the birthplace of Indian Methodism in the western Upper Peninsula, and predated Frederic Baraga's mission at Assinins by 11 years.”
Wikipedia article Zeba Indian United Methodist Church, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 6 National Register listings published here for Baraga County · listed in 1980 · 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. Peter Marksman Rd., Zeba, 49946
When was it listed? April 1980
Category. building
Township. L'Anse township
Architectural style. Gothic Revival
National Register reference number. 80001847 - 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

94 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 94 fires within 5 miles of Kewawenon Mission between 1994 and 2020, burning about 746 acres in total. 6 started naturally. 5 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	41
Fireworks	12
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	9
Misuse of fire by a minor	7
Recreation and ceremony	6
Natural	6
Arson/incendiarism	5
Equipment and vehicle use	4
Smoking	2
Power generation/transmission/distribution	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
9 September 2019	Recreation and ceremony	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	L'ANSE FD 0201961 - 2019
7 September 2008	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Michigan Agency	ZEBA ALLOTMENT
5 September 2011	Fireworks	under an acre	Michigan Agency	LABOR
28 September 2013	Fireworks	under an acre	Michigan Agency	US 41 PINES
27 September 2013	Fireworks	under an acre	Michigan Agency	PONDS
27 September 2013	Fireworks	under an acre	Michigan Agency	US 41 #1
27 September 2013	Fireworks	under an acre	Michigan Agency	US 41 #2
5 August 2010	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Michigan Agency	RR TRACKS

Every fire recorded in Baraga County

Mines and quarries near this property

5 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 5 workings within 5 miles of Kewawenon Mission: 2 past producers, 2 prospects, 1 occurrence. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Silver, Sand and Gravel, Construction, Granite, Copper. 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	Recorded
Baraga County Pits	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Gomanche Creek Slate Quarry	Granite	Past Producer
Unnamed Copper Prospect	Copper	Occurrence
Silver River Silver Prospect	Silver	Prospect	Vein
Unnamed Silver Prospect	Silver	Prospect

Every working recorded in Baraga County

Storms near this property

2 since 2020

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Zeba, the town this property stands in, in 2 storm reports between 2020 and 2022: 2 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 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Zeba	$2,000	Facebook user shared pictures of a tree down over a road and on a primary power line three miles southeast of Assinins. Time of the report was estimated from radar.
July 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Zeba	$2,000	There were social media photos of power poles snapped near the intersection of Johnson Road and Bayshore Road near Zeba. Time of the delayed report was estimated from radar.

Every storm recorded in Baraga 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

3 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
Assinins	2.6 miles	1972
US-41 (old)-Backwater Creek Bridge	4.2 miles	1999
Hebard-Ford Summer House	4.8 miles	1982

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 80001847 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Baraga 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.