Faribault County Courthouse

Built in 1891 (Richardsonian Romanesque). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.

From the record

“The Faribault County Courthouse in Blue Earth, Minnesota, United States, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building was completed in December 1892 at a cost of $70,000.”
Wikipedia article Faribault County Courthouse, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 11 National Register listings published here for Faribault County · listed in 1977 · category: Building · built in 1891, Richardsonian Romanesque.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. 415 N. Main, Blue Earth, 56013
When was it listed? April 1977
Category. building
Also known as. Faribault County MRA (AD); Faribault County MRA
City. Blue Earth city
When was it built? 1891
Architectural style. Richardsonian Romanesque
National Register reference number. 77000731 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

The ground it stands on

6,978 words

The chapter on Blue Earth City in The History of Faribault County, Minnesota : from Its First Settlement to the Close of the Year 1879 : the Story of the Pioneers, published 1896 names Blue Earth. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.

Following events in their order, we now record the fact that Blue Earth City, the only village in the township, and the oldest in the county, was surveyed and platted in July, 1856, and the first buildings were erected in that year. The founding of the village preceded the organization and naming of the township. The original proprietors and founders of the village were James B. Wakefield, Henry P. Constans, Samuel V. Hibler and Spier Spencer.

Passage source: The History of Faribault County, Minnesota : from Its First Settlement to the Close of the Year 1879 : the Story of the Pioneers, published 1896.

By the act organizing the county, the county seat was located at Blue Earth City, and the question of location was voted upon at the next general election, which was held in October, 1856, and was decided unanimously in favor of Blue Earth City. The question of removal of the county seat from Blue Earth City to Winnebago City voted upon at the general election of 18G1, and a large majority of the votes proved to be against removal, and the capital of the county has remained, from the first, at this village. But our general history of the county will show that many subsequent attempts have been made to remove the county seat.

Passage source: The History of Faribault County, Minnesota : from Its First Settlement to the Close of the Year 1879 : the Story of the Pioneers, published 1896.

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 Blue Earth City - 6,978 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Storms near this property

44 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Blue Earth, the town this property stands in, in 44 storm reports between 1994 and 2023: 18 hail, 15 thunderstorm wind, 3 flash flood, 3 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
July 1997	Tornado (F0)	Blue Earth	$100,000	2 farmsteads damaged.
June 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Blue Earth	$5,000	Several large tree branches were blown down, and caused a garage roof to be damaged in the city of Blue Earth, Minnesota.
April 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Blue Earth	$5,000	Tree down on car.
April 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Blue Earth	$2,000	Large tree branches were blown down, with a trailer tossed near Blue Earth.
June 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Blue Earth	-	Several large trees were blown down into houses and vehicles.
May 2012	Lightning	Blue Earth	-	Two people were killed in a house fire in Blue Earth, Minnesota, Sunday morning around 5 a.m. The deceased were a 39 year old male, and a 47 year old male. An investigation found the cause of the fire had been a lightning strike to the home, which had no functioning smoke detectors.
September 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Blue Earth	-	A Minnesota Department of Transportation weather sensor, along Interstate 90, measured a wind gust of 58 mph.
March 2011	Flood	Blue Earth	-	Several county roads became impassable due to Spring snow melt and rainfall around the Blue Earth River.
March 2010	Flood	Blue Earth	-	Several roads along Coon Creek were flooded due to an ice jam.
June 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Blue Earth	-	A storm spotter measured a 53 knot wind gust.
June 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Blue Earth	-	Numerous trees were blown down in the city of Blue Earth, Minnesota.
July 2010	Heavy Rain	Blue Earth	-	An observer measured 2.00 inches of rainfall in six hours.
September 2010	Heavy Rain	Blue Earth	-	A cooperative observer measured 4.92 inches of rainfall in less than 5 hours.
May 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Blue Earth	-	Trees down.
July 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Blue Earth	-	About one dozen trees down.
August 2006	Flash Flood	Blue Earth	-	Four to five inches of rain resulted in U.S. Highway 169 closing briefly due to 2-3 feet of water on roadway. Street flooding with water running into basements. Manhole blown off and water running into basement windows.
August 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Blue Earth	-	Three inch diameter branches were downed.
September 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Blue Earth	-	Tree branches were downed.
May 2004	Heavy Rain	Blue Earth	-	A spotter reported 3.25 inches of rain.
July 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Blue Earth	-	Gust measured by MNDOT Road Weather System.
June 2002	Flash Flood	Blue Earth	-	Two feet of water on city streets. Manhole covers blown off sewers.
July 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Blue Earth	-	Several trees down.
July 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Blue Earth	-	Trees and power lines down.
May 1998	Tornado (F1)	Blue Earth	-	Brief touchdown tore roof off metal structure at canning plant.
June 1998	Flash Flood	Blue Earth	-	Between 3 and 4 inches of rain resulted in street flooding.
August 1994	Hail	Blue Earth	-	Golfball size hail reported 6 miles east of Blue Earth.
August 2023	Hail	Blue Earth	-	no account filed
June 2020	Hail	Blue Earth	-	no account filed
June 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Blue Earth	-	no account filed
April 2010	Hail	Blue Earth	-	no account filed
June 2010	Hail	Blue Earth	-	no account filed
June 2009	Hail	Blue Earth	-	no account filed
June 2007	Hail	Blue Earth	-	no account filed
October 2006	Hail	Blue Earth	-	no account filed
October 2006	Hail	Blue Earth	-	no account filed
June 2004	Hail	Blue Earth	-	no account filed
July 2002	Hail	Blue Earth	-	no account filed
May 2001	Hail	Blue Earth	-	no account filed
June 1999	Hail	Blue Earth	-	no account filed
May 1998	Hail	Blue Earth	-	no account filed
May 1998	Hail	Blue Earth	-	no account filed
June 1997	Hail	Blue Earth	-	no account filed
June 1996	Hail	Blue Earth	-	no account filed
June 1995	Hail	Blue Earth	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Faribault 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
James B. Wakefield House	0.4 miles	1980
Memorial Library	0.4 miles	1988
Church of the Good Shepherd-Episcopal	0.4 miles	1980

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 77000731 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Faribault County	All 11 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.
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.