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Sacred Heart, Minnesota

9 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1953 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Sacred Heart City. It lies in ZIP code area 56285. The Survey maps it on the Sacred Heart quadrangle. 510 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,070 feet above sea level.

Research this city

Sacred Heart within Renville County

On record in Sacred Heart

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 4 records

Population over time

2 figures

Sacred Heart fell from 548 to 510 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
2010548
2020510-38 (-7%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 surveys from 9 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

9,233 words on this township

The History of Renville County, Minnesota, published 1916 names this settlement in its chapter on Sacred Heart City. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

This settlement of sturdy Scandinavians, while the beginning of the influx of the substantial people of that nationality to the western part of Renville county, was not the first settlement in Sacred Heart. People had been here before the Massacre. 1 he famous Major Joseph R. Brown stone house had been built about 1860. In 1865, before the Scandinavian colony arrived. G. P. Greene had settled in the township. Mr. Greene was a prominent man in the township. He was the first postmaster of Minnesota Crossing, so called from the ford below his house. The mail was brought by a carrier from Vicksburg until 1876.

Passage source: The History of Renville County, Minnesota, published 1916.

Two stories are told of the naming of Sacred Heart. One story concerns Charles Patterson, who settled in Flora township, on the Renville county side of the rapids in the Minnesota river, in 17S3, and there established a trading post. He wore a peculiar shaped hat, made of fur. and the Indians began to call him the man with the strange or mysterious or magic hat. Their word "wakan," really meaning "spirit," being applied to anything that they did not quite comprehend or that was unusual in any way. Each particular clan of Indians had some animal which they never killed and which they regarded as sacred. It has been said that the Indians then living in this locality esteemed the bear sacred and that Patterson's hat was made of the fur from a great bear which had frequented the neighborhood.

Passage source: The History of Renville County, Minnesota, published 1916.

Gradually they began to refer to the man himself as "The Spirit Hat" or "The Sacred Hat." the meaning being the same as the name from which "Medicine Hat" was translated. Later the white people corrupted the name of "Sacred Hat" to Sacred Heart.

Passage source: The History of Renville County, Minnesota, published 1916.

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 Sacred Heart City - it names this place 12 more 12 times.

Fires near this place

1 since 2006

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 1 fire within 5 miles of Sacred Heart in 2006, burning about 17 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
Equipment and vehicle use1

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
30 October 2006Equipment and vehicle use17 acresLitchfield Wetland Management DistrictSACRED HEART FIRE

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Renville County

Mines and quarries near this place

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Sacred Heart: 1 producer. All of them still produce. 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.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Hagen PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer

Every working recorded in Renville County

Storms near this place

37 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Sacred Heart in 37 storm reports between 1996 and 2024: 19 hail, 14 thunderstorm wind, 1 flash flood, 1 heavy rain. 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 2016LightningSacred Heart$500,000A lightning bolt struck a church in Sacred Heart, Minnesota. The lightning started a fire and destroyed the church which was built 140 years before. No one was injured, but the church was a total loss.
August 2021Thunderstorm WindSacred Heart$50,000Damage occurred north of Sacred Heart, and south of County Road 11. There was a metal roof that was blown several feet from its foundation and had its roof peeled off. Plus, several large trees were blown down. In addition, the farm had some of their corn flattened.
May 2022Thunderstorm WindSacred Heart$25,000Severe straight-line winds blew down a large grain bin near Sacred Heart and blocked part of Highway 212.
August 2020Thunderstorm WindSacred Heart$5,000A few large trees were blown down between Sacred Heart, and Renville, including a large tree that fell on a house in Renville.
June 2024Tornado (EF0)Sacred Heart-A storm chaser filmed a brief tornado. It broke a few large branches before moving into an open field and dissipating.
June 2024HailSacred Heart-Photos were sent to the NWS.
September 2021HailSacred Heart-A picture of 1 hail that fell north of Sacred Heart.
June 2017Thunderstorm WindSacred Heart-Several power lines were blown down northwest of Sacred Heart.
July 2016Thunderstorm WindSacred Heart-A few reports of downed trees and power lines from near Sacred Heart, south to the Minnesota River.
August 2016Heavy RainSacred Heart-An individual measured 5.40 inches of rain in Sacred Heart.
August 2013Thunderstorm WindSacred Heart-A large tree was blown down on Highway 212 in Sacred Heart.
September 2013Thunderstorm WindSacred Heart-A power line was blown down, along with several large tree branches scattered across the town of Sacred Heart.
August 2013Thunderstorm WindSacred Heart-Several large tree branches, up to six inches in diameter, were blown down northeast of Sacred Heart.
June 2012Thunderstorm WindSacred Heart-A tractor trailer was blown over on Highway 212 west of Sacred Heart.
August 2010Flash FloodSacred Heart-Several inches of rainfall occurred between 10 PM CST to 12 Midnight CST across a large area of Renville County. A section of Highway 212 near Sacred Heart was closed due to the flood waters. Some areas along Highway 212 had knee deep water during the height of the storm.
June 2005HailSacred Heart-Penny sized hail fell for 5 minutes.
July 2004Thunderstorm WindSacred Heart-Six inch diameter branches were downed in Ericson Township.
July 2003Thunderstorm WindSacred Heart-Trees and power lines down.
June 2001Thunderstorm WindSacred Heart-Trees blown down.
June 1998Thunderstorm WindSacred Heart-Ballpark damaged. Trees uprooted and power lines down. Estimated windspeed.
July 1998Thunderstorm WindSacred Heart-Street lamps blown over. Estimated windspeed.
September 2024HailSacred Heart-no account filed
September 2020HailSacred Heart-no account filed
September 2020HailSacred Heart-no account filed
September 2020HailSacred Heart-no account filed
April 2019HailSacred Heart-no account filed
July 2017HailSacred Heart-no account filed
April 2012HailSacred Heart-no account filed
July 2011HailSacred Heart-no account filed
April 2010HailSacred Heart-no account filed
August 2010HailSacred Heart-no account filed
June 2007HailSacred Heart-no account filed
August 2004HailSacred Heart-no account filed
July 2000HailSacred Heart-no account filed
June 1999HailSacred Heart-no account filed
June 1999HailSacred Heart-no account filed
June 1996HailSacred Heart-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Renville 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
Renville7.4 miles9
Danube13.5 miles9
Bechyn17.4 miles11
Olivia19.2 miles10
Beaver Falls21.4 miles13
Bird Island24.2 miles10
Morton25.4 miles12
Franklin30.7 miles12

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 Sacred HeartAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2228164The 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 650451. 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.