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Lake Henry, Minnesota

8 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1953 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Lake Henry City. It lies in ZIP code area 56362. The Survey maps it on the Lake Henry quadrangle. 72 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,309 feet above sea level.

Lake Henry within Stearns County

Population over time

2 figures

Lake Henry fell from 103 to 72 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.

YearPeople Change
2010103
202072-31 (-30%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

5 surveys from 8 printed sheets

Matched 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.

In the county-history sources

2,497 words on this township

History of Stearns County, Minnesota, published 1915 names this settlement in its chapter on Lake Henry City. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

Lake Henry lies in the southwest part of the county, and has an area of about 23.000 acres, embracing the whole of township 123 north, range 33 west. With the exception of some light timber along the banks of Lake Henry, the town was originally a smooth prairie, somewhat undulating. The soil is chiefly a rich black loam with a clay subsoil. The only lake of any importance is Lake Henry, lying on sections ten and fifteen. It is about one and a half miles long, with an average width of about one-quarter of a mile.

Passage source: History of Stearns County, Minnesota, published 1915.

Prussia. He came to this then uninhabited region in 1855, and selected a home on sections ten and eleven. Mr. Popping died September 22, 1872. Michael Kraemer came in 1856, and settled near the south end of Lake Henry. These are undoubtedly the first two settlers. The population, for a number of years, increased very slowly, owing to the distance from market, and the open prairie country which was objected to by many on account of the frequent severe storms in winter. Later, however, the railroad extended west through the county, thus affording better facilities for the shipment of grain, and the winter storms have become less frequent and severe, and as a result, the town has grown.

Passage source: History of Stearns County, Minnesota, published 1915.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Lake Henry City.

Fires near this place

4 since 2004

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 4 fires within 5 miles of Lake Henry between 2004 and 2012, burning about 40 acres in total. None 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
Recreation and ceremony3
Missing data/not specified/undetermined1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
24 April 2004Recreation and ceremony1.5 acresLitchfield Wetland Management DistrictHENRY
24 April 2004Recreation and ceremony2.0 acresLitchfield Wetland Management DistrictHENRY SR.
24 April 2004Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreLitchfield Wetland Management DistrictHENRY JR
11 October 2012Missing data/not specified/undetermined36 acresLitchfield Wetland Management DistrictREGAL MEADOW DEUCE

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Stearns County

Storms near this place

4 since 1999

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Lake Henry in 4 storm reports between 1999 and 2004: 2 hail, 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
July 2004Thunderstorm WindLake Henry-Large branches were downed.
July 2003Thunderstorm WindLake Henry-About one dozen trees downed.
June 2002HailLake Henry-no account filed
June 1999HailLake Henry-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Stearns County

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 PlaceDistance Sheets
Spring Hill4.8 miles8
Paynesville7.1 miles8
Georgeville7.3 miles8
Saint Martin7.3 miles8
Roscoe8.5 miles8
Greenwald10.3 miles8
Elrosa10.7 miles8
Belgrade11.0 miles9

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 Lake HenryAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2230501The 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 646362. 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.

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.