Koochiching County Courthouse

Built in 1909 (Neoclassical architecture). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.

From the record

“The Koochiching County Courthouse is a Classical Revival brick building in International Falls, Minnesota, United States.”
Wikipedia article Koochiching County Courthouse, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 10 National Register listings published here for Koochiching County · listed in 1977 · category: Building · built in 1909, Neoclassical architecture, by Charles E. Bell.

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. 4th St. and 7th Ave., International Falls, 56649
When was it listed? September 1977
Category. building
Unorganized territory. Rainy Lake
When was it built? 1909
Architectural style. Neoclassical architecture
Architect. Charles E. Bell
National Register reference number. 77000749 - 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.

Fires near this property

46 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 46 fires within 5 miles of Koochiching County Courthouse between 1992 and 2019, burning about 79 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 6 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	19
Arson/incendiarism	6
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	6
Railroad operations and maintenance	5
Smoking	3
Recreation and ceremony	3
Equipment and vehicle use	3
Natural	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
8 September 2006	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
18 September 2012	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
24 August 2008	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
2 August 2014	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
15 August 2006	Natural	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
28 July 1995	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2.5 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
12 July 2002	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
3 June 2002	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named

Every fire recorded in Koochiching County

Mines and quarries near this property

9 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 9 workings within 5 miles of Koochiching County Courthouse: 9 producers. All of them still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, 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.

Site	Commodity	Status
Ranier Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Boise Cascade Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
County Pit No 1	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
International Falls Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Kolinski Pit and Mill	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Oveson Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Peterson Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Ranier Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Ranier Pit and Mill	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Every working recorded in Koochiching County

Storms near this property

37 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names International Falls, the town this property stands in, in 37 storm reports between 1994 and 2022: 19 hail, 12 thunderstorm wind, 3 flood, 2 lightning. 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 1998	Hail	International Falls	$3,000,000	no account filed
July 2022	Flood	International Falls	$2,400,000	Above normal snowfall for the 2021-2022 season was observed across northern portions of Koochiching and St. Louis counties and much of that remained on the ground into April. Heavy rainfall then fell on top of that above normal snowpack at the end of April and sent abnormally high amounts of runoff into the Rainy River Basin leading to rises on Rainy Lake. International Falls experienced their wettest April on record, helping to set the stage for the flooding. By June 15th, the level of Rainy Lake reached 1113.2 feet which was 22 inches above the 2014 peak level and 2.5 inches above the all-time record set in 1950. Having crested and setting a new all-time high, the lake level fell over the remainder of the month to 1112.4 feet (13 inches above 2014 peak and slightly below the 1950 record) by the start of July. The high lake levels led to extensive damage to properties adjacent to the water along with damage to docks and other infrastructure. Lake levels would continue to fall into July and the Flood Warning was canceled on July 11th. Levels on Rainy Lake remained above normal at this time, but were receding and the threat for additional flooding had ended. State and Federal disasters were declared for the event with millions of dollars in infrastructure damage and property loss.
August 1998	Lightning	International Falls	$25,000	no account filed
July 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	International Falls	$1,000	A carport and woodshed were blown down and destroyed.
May 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	International Falls	-	A large pine tree was down in International Falls.
May 2022	Flood	International Falls	-	Above normal snowfall for the 2021-2022 season was observed across northern portions of Koochiching and St. Louis counties and much of that remained on the ground into April. Heavy rainfall then fell on top of that above normal snowpack at the end of April and sent abnormally high amounts of runoff into the Rainy River Basin leading to rises on Namakan Lake and Kabetogama Lake. International Falls experienced their wettest April on record, helping to set the stage for the flooding. By the end of May, the level of Rainy Lake reached 1112.4 feet which was 12 inches above the 2014 peak level and 7 inches below the all-time record set in 1950. The high lake levels led to extensive damage to properties adjacent to the water along with damage to docks and other infrastructure. Lake levels would continue to rise into June.
July 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	International Falls	-	Numerous trees and powerlines were downed by the winds.
June 2022	Flood	International Falls	-	Above normal snowfall for the 2021-2022 season was observed across northern portions of Koochiching and St. Louis counties and much of that remained on the ground into April. Heavy rainfall then fell on top of that above normal snowpack at the end of April and sent abnormally high amounts of runoff into the Rainy River Basin leading to rises on Rainy Lake. International Falls experienced their wettest April on record, helping to set the stage for the flooding. By June 15th, the level of Rainy Lake reached 1113.2 feet which was 22 inches above the 2014 peak level and 2.5 inches above the all-time record set in 1950. Having crested and setting a new all-time high, the lake level fell over the remainder of the month to 1112.4 feet (13 inches above 2014 peak and slightly below the 1950 record) by the start of July. The high lake levels led to extensive damage to properties adjacent to the water along with damage to docks and other infrastructure. Lake levels would continue to fall into July.
June 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	International Falls	-	There were trees down across town. Crews were dispatched to clear trees after 6 am.
July 2013	Hail	International Falls	-	A thunderstorm dropped mostly pea sized hail, but there were a few nickel and dime sized hailstones.
July 2010	Flash Flood	International Falls	-	Water was covering U.S. Highway 53 just south of International Falls.
July 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	International Falls	-	The strong thudnerstorm winds blew down trees and caused damage to private homes.
July 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	International Falls	-	Strong thunderstorm winds blew decks from homes and blew down many pine trees. One-quarter of a garage roof was blown off.
September 2005	Lightning	International Falls	-	Lightning struck on insulator, which shut down power substations in International Falls and Kabetogama, leaving 1,800 residents without power until 7:30 am CST.
August 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	International Falls	-	Downburst winds blew down many trees on Grindstone Island in Rainy Lake. A summer home and boathouse were severely damaged.
August 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	International Falls	-	Trees were blown down.
August 1995	Hail	International Falls	-	Numerous reports of broken windshields and glass. Sheetmetal and fiberglass damage to light buildings.
August 1995	Hail	International Falls	-	Numerous reports of broken windshields and glass. Sheetmetal and fiberglass damage to light buildings.
August 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	International Falls	-	Numerous reports of broken windshields and glass. Sheetmetal and fiberglass damage to light buildings.
August 1994	Hail	International Falls	-	Dime size hail at the Voyageurs National Park Visitors Center.
June 2022	Hail	International Falls	-	no account filed
June 2016	Hail	International Falls	-	no account filed
May 2006	Hail	International Falls	-	no account filed
April 2005	Hail	International Falls	-	no account filed
July 2003	Hail	International Falls	-	no account filed
April 2002	Hail	International Falls	-	no account filed
June 2002	Hail	International Falls	-	no account filed
July 2002	Hail	International Falls	-	no account filed
June 2000	Hail	International Falls	-	no account filed
June 2000	Hail	International Falls	-	no account filed
August 1999	Hail	International Falls	-	no account filed
July 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	International Falls	-	no account filed
June 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	International Falls	-	no account filed
June 1999	Hail	International Falls	-	no account filed
May 1998	Hail	International Falls	-	no account filed
August 1996	Thunderstorm Wind	International Falls	-	no account filed
August 1996	Hail	International Falls	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Koochiching 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
Alexander Baker School and E.W. Backus Junior High School	0.1 miles	2004
Ranier Community Building	2.9 miles	2018
Finstad's Auto Marine Shop	3.0 miles	1983

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 77000749 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Koochiching County	All 10 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.