Kenney Lake Overlook

Built in 1939 (National Park Service rustic). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.

From the record

“The Kenney Lake Overlook is a historic roadside park in Garrison Township, Minnesota, United States. Adjacent to the southbound lane of Minnesota State Highway 18 (MN 18), the two-acre (0.8 ha) site provides a parking area and an overlook of a small lake.”
Wikipedia article Kenney Lake Overlook, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 31 National Register listings published here for Crow Wing County · listed in 2015 · category: Site · built in 1939, National Park Service rustic, by Arthur R. Nichols.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 2 structuress, 1 site as contributing to the listing.
Address. MN 18, 900 ft. SW. of N. Kenney Lake Ln., Garrison, 56401
When was it listed? November 2015
Category. site
Also known as. Federal Relief Construction in Minnesota, 1933-1943 MPS; Federal Relief Construction in Minnesota, 1933-1943 MPS
Township. Garrison township
When was it built? 1939
Architectural style. National Park Service rustic
Architect. Arthur R. Nichols
National Register reference number. 15000789 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.

Fires near this property

112 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 112 fires within 5 miles of Kenney Lake Overlook between 1992 and 2020, burning about 237 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 20 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	49
Arson/incendiarism	20
Equipment and vehicle use	16
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	15
Recreation and ceremony	6
Smoking	2
Power generation/transmission/distribution	2
Natural	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
5 September 2004	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
26 September 2006	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
25 September 2013	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
5 August 1992	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
4 July 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2.0 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
8 June 2019	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
3 June 2009	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
23 June 2005	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named

Every fire recorded in Crow Wing County

Mines and quarries near this property

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Kenney Lake Overlook: 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	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Garrison Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Every working recorded in Crow Wing County

Storms near this property

4 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Garrison, the town this property stands in, in 4 storm reports between 1996 and 2022: 3 thunderstorm wind, 1 hail. 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
September 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Garrison	-	A few trees were knocked down and partially blocking Minnesota Highway 169.
August 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Garrison	-	Numerous trees were blown down by the strong thunderstorm winds.
June 2022	Hail	Garrison	-	no account filed
August 1996	Thunderstorm Wind	Garrison	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Crow Wing 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
Garrison Concourse	2.3 miles	2013
Bridge No. 5265-Garrison	2.7 miles	1998
St. Alban's Bay Culvert at Mille Lacs Lake	3.8 miles	2015

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 15000789 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Crow Wing County	All 31 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.