BlockBrownsville, Minnesota
10 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1956 and the latest in 1990. It stands in Brownsville City. It lies in ZIP code area 55919. It stands on Wildcat Creek. The Survey maps it on the Brownsville quadrangle. 566 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 705 feet above sea level.
On record in Brownsville
Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.
On the National Register 1 record
- Church of the Holy Comforter-Episcopallisted 1970
Population over time
2 figuresBrownsville grew from 466 to 566 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 466 | |
| 2020 | 566 | +100 (+21%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
8 surveys from 10 printed sheetsMatched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.
- 1956 USGS Brownsville quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1958 USGS La Crosse quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1961 USGS La Crosse quadrangle1:250000
- 1965 USGS La Crosse quadrangle1:250000
- 1976 USGS La Crosse quadrangle1:250000
- 1980 USGS Brownsville quadrangle1:24000
- 1984 USGS La Crosse quadrangle1:100000
- 1990 USGS La Crosse quadrangle1:100000
In the county-history sources
1,087 words on this townshipHistory of Houston County, Minnesota, published 1919 names this settlement in its chapter on Brownsville City. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.
The Western Progress. This was a newspaper with a decided literary turn, published by Mrs. Bella French and Richard 0. Thomas. It was a neat, well printed sheet that worked hard in the interest of Brownsville and Southern Minnesota. In April, 1870, Mr. Thomas withdrew and went to La Crosse, and the next month, a more promising field having opened in Spring Valley, Fillmore county, the whole establishment was removed there. Mrs. French afterwards published a magazine, "The Busy West," in St. Paul, and subsequently did some excellent historical work in Wisconsin. She later became a resident of Austin, Tex., and the editor of the "American Sketch book," a pioneer magazine of the "Lone Star" State.
Passage source: History of Houston County, Minnesota, published 1919.
"The old Washington hand press upon which Owen Lovejoy was wont to print his paper was not allowed to sleep in the bed of the Ohio River, however ; it was fished out, taken to Brownsville, and was there used for a few months in the publication of a clientless newspaper. Later it was sold to Dr. A. P. Blakeslee and others of La Crosse, and was the press on which the National Democrat of that city was printed, which later furnished the mechanism through which the famous Mark M. (Brick) Pomeroy made his vigorous assaults upon the administration of Abraham Lincoln, whom he denounced as the 'widow maker,' and declared the war for the preservation of the union to be a failure.
Passage source: History of Houston County, Minnesota, published 1919.
"But this is not all of this strange circumstance. The man who did the press work for Owen Lovejoy on that old Washington hand press in Cairo, followed its fortunes to Brownsville and to La Crosse, and was the foreman of Pomeroy's office, and of Blakeslee's office before him, in those old days of confiict between the anti-slavery and the pro-slavery parties. And that foreman and pressman was a colored man named Joseph Taylor. He was in Lovejoy's printing office when the Kentucky mob made its assault, but made his escape, watched the proceeding from a safe vantage, and it was he that pointed out the place where the old press sank beneath the waters of the river, and assisted in its recovery.
Passage source: History of Houston County, Minnesota, published 1919.
Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.
Fires near this place
41 since 1993Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 41 fires within 5 miles of Brownsville between 1993 and 2020, burning about 242 acres in total. None started naturally. 7 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 | 19 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 7 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 3 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 2 |
| Railroad operations and maintenance | 2 |
| Smoking | 1 |
| Fireworks | 1 |
| Misuse of fire by a minor | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 September 2003 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 16 July 1996 | Equipment and vehicle use | 8.0 acres | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 30 June 2009 | Fireworks | under an acre | LaCrosse District, Upper Mississippi National Wildlife Refuge | WIGWAM SLOUGH |
| 21 June 1996 | Railroad operations and maintenance | under an acre | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 14 June 1994 | Recreation and ceremony | under an acre | LaCrosse District, Upper Mississippi National Wildlife Refuge | GOOSEIS |
| 7 May 2002 | Arson/incendiarism | 1.0 acres | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 5 May 2019 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | 68 |
| 4 May 2004 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Mines and quarries near this place
2 within 5 milesRegional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Brownsville: 2 producers. All of them still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Where | Site | Commodity | Status | Recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conniff Quarry & Mill | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Producer | ||
| Zaiger Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Producer |
Storms near this place
13 since 1996Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Brownsville in 13 storm reports between 1996 and 2020: 6 thunderstorm wind, 5 hail, 1 lightning, 1 funnel cloud. 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 2004 | Hail | Brownsville | $75,000 | no account filed |
| June 1998 | Thunderstorm Wind | Brownsville | $46,000 | no account filed |
| July 2000 | Lightning | Brownsville | $25,000 | no account filed |
| July 2020 | Thunderstorm Wind | Brownsville | $10,000 | The tin roof of a barn was blown off. |
| March 2017 | Thunderstorm Wind | Brownsville | $10,000 | Part of a roof was blown off a barn near Brownsville. |
| July 2004 | Hail | Brownsville | $10,000 | no account filed |
| May 2018 | Thunderstorm Wind | Brownsville | $5,000 | Numerous trees and some power lines were blown down near Brownsville. |
| September 2011 | Thunderstorm Wind | Brownsville | $4,000 | Numerous trees and power lines were blown down near Brownsville. |
| August 1996 | Thunderstorm Wind | Brownsville | $300 | no account filed |
| July 2020 | Funnel Cloud | Brownsville | - | A funnel cloud was sighted just west of Brownsville. |
| June 2015 | Hail | Brownsville | - | Quarter sized hail was reported west of Brownsville. |
| June 2015 | Hail | Brownsville | - | no account filed |
| July 2004 | Hail | Brownsville | - | no account filed |
Nearest settlements
The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.
| Map | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hokah | 5.7 miles | 14 | |
| Village Terrace | 6.1 miles | 14 | |
| Reno | 6.4 miles | 10 | |
| Freeburg | 7.3 miles | 10 | |
| La Crescent | 9.3 miles | 14 | |
| Shepardson's Park | 9.6 miles | 14 | |
| River Junction | 10.5 miles | 14 | |
| South Ridge | 11.9 miles | 13 |
Elsewhere
Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.
| Wikipedia article on Brownsville | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2225760 | The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0). |
Provenance
This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 640547. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
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.