Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
From the record
“Frank's Ford Bridge, also called the Red Bridge and officially Bridge L6322, is a steel, pin-connected truss bridge that spans the south branch of the Zumbro River near Oronoco, Minnesota, United States. Horton of Chicago Bridge & Iron Company, making it one of Minnesota's oldest truss bridges.”
Wikipedia article Frank's Ford Bridge, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 26 National Register listings published here for Olmsted County · listed in 1980 · category: Structure.
National Register reference number.80004534- 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
2 since 1992
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 2 fires within 5 miles of Frank's Ford Bridge
between 1992 and 2016, burning about 3 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
1
Equipment and vehicle use
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
3 workings within 5 miles of Frank's Ford Bridge: 2 producers, 1 unknown.
2 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, 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.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Oronoco, the town this property stands in, in 47 storm reports between 1993 and 2026: 33 hail, 12 thunderstorm wind, 1 flash flood, 1 funnel cloud.
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.
The approach on the north side of the County Road 18 bridge going through Oronoco washed out as the Middle Fork of the Zumbro River flooded. The Lake Shady Dam was also damaged.
Many large trees were blown down in the city of Oronoco. Damage occurred to the soffit, facia, siding, and garage door of a home. Also, a camper tumbled and was moved from its original location.
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
6 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.
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.
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