BlockFrom the record
One of 16 National Register listings published here for Houston County · listed in 2017 · category: Building.
Sources: the National Register database, National Park Service
Ballard Hotel
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2017.
The listing
- What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
- Still standing. The Park Service records this property as extant.
- Address. 163 W. Main St., Spring Grove, 55974
- When was it listed? November 2017
- Category. building
- City. Spring Grove city
- National Register reference number. 100001841 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.
The ground it stands on
4,415 wordsThe chapter on Spring Grove Township in History of Houston County, Minnesota, published 1919 names Spring Grove. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.
The farmers co-operative movement is represented by the Farmers* Co-operative Creamery Association, and the Spring Grove Stock and Grain Co. This is also the shipping point for the Yucatan Creamery Association, not far away. The Wilmington Township Mutual Life Insurance Co. also has Spring Grove as its address.
Passage source: History of Houston County, Minnesota, published 1919.
The first public well in Spring Grove dates back long before village days. Mons Fladager blasted a seventy-foot well, and lined it with masonry, that being long before the days of the drilled wells. A windmill was placed over this and troughs extended to the street, thus providing water for public use. The first steps toward establishing the village waterworks were taken on Sept. 19, 1894, when land was purchased from Lars Budahl for $350, for the purpose of establishing a water supply. March 12, 1895, by a vote of 56 to 9, the voters authorized the issuing of $3,000 bonds. It was decided to have a plant operated by a windmill, but as the work progressed it was found necessary to have a deeper well and establish a gasoline engine pumping station, with tower and tank. The complete system with mains and hydrants was completed in the early spring of 1896 at a cost of $3,927. The system has since been extended.
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.
Read the whole chapter on Spring Grove Township - 4,415 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.
Fires near this property
19 since 1993Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 19 fires within 5 miles of Ballard Hotel between 1993 and 2018, burning about 67 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 |
|---|---|
| Debris and open burning | 12 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 4 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 3 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 September 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 31 August 2005 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 30 June 2012 | Equipment and vehicle use | under an acre | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 7 May 2004 | Equipment and vehicle use | under an acre | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 29 May 2003 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 1 May 2005 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 9 April 2009 | Debris and open burning | 8.5 acres | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 9 April 2004 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
Mines and quarries near this property
5 within 5 milesRegional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 5 workings within 5 miles of Ballard Hotel: 4 producers, 1 past producer. 4 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Guberud Quarry & Mill | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Producer | ||
| Rauk Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Producer | ||
| Roverud Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Producer | ||
| Underpass Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Producer | ||
| Unknown | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Past Producer |
Storms near this property
14 since 1997Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Spring Grove, the town this property stands in, in 14 storm reports between 1997 and 2025: 7 hail, 6 thunderstorm wind, 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.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 2024 | Thunderstorm Wind | Spring Grove | $25,000 | Law enforcement reported power lines down in Spring Grove. |
| June 1998 | Thunderstorm Wind | Spring Grove | $12,000 | no account filed |
| August 2018 | Heavy Rain | Spring Grove | $10,000 | Rainfall totaled 6.50 inches during this time frame. |
| June 1997 | Thunderstorm Wind | Spring Grove | $8,000 | no account filed |
| May 2007 | Thunderstorm Wind | Spring Grove | $2,500 | no account filed |
| July 2003 | Thunderstorm Wind | Spring Grove | $1,250 | no account filed |
| March 2025 | Hail | Spring Grove | - | Quarter sized hail was reported by the public in Spring Grove, Minnesota. |
| July 2014 | Hail | Spring Grove | - | Quarter sized hail fell in Spring Grove. |
| September 2012 | Hail | Spring Grove | - | Up to tennis ball sized hail was reported in Spring Grove. |
| August 2018 | Hail | Spring Grove | - | no account filed |
| September 2012 | Hail | Spring Grove | - | no account filed |
| May 2003 | Hail | Spring Grove | - | no account filed |
| June 2000 | Thunderstorm Wind | Spring Grove | - | no account filed |
| June 1998 | Hail | Spring Grove | - | no account filed |
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 milesOther 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.
| Photograph | Property | Distance | Listed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bridge No. L4013 | 5.4 miles | 1990 | |
 | Portland Prairie Methodist Episcopal Church | 7.8 miles | 1982 |
| Schech Mill | 7.9 miles | 1978 |
Sources for this property
| National Archives record | The nomination case file for reference 100001841 in Record Group 79. |
| Houston County | All 16 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.