Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
From the record
“Vista Lutheran Church is a historic church in Otisco Township, Minnesota, United States, built in 1908. The Gothic Revival building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 for having local significance in the themes of religion and European heritage.”
Wikipedia article Vista Lutheran Church, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 12 National Register listings published here for Waseca County · listed in 1982 · category: Building.
National Register reference number.82000565- 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.
Mrs. Christine Spoonburg, widow, whose maiden name was Johnson, was born in Sweden, February 4:, 1837. She came to America in 1869, with her brother and sister, tlie former of whom lives in Davenport, Iowa, and the latter in Waseca. Christine Johnson was mai-ried to John Spoonburg, in New Richland. He, also, was a native of Sweden, born October 12, 1838, and came to this country in 1869, and purchased eighty acres of land on section 34, where his widow still resides. They had born to them six children: Abbie Althie, born September 17,
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
3 workings within 5 miles of Vista Lutheran Church: 3 producers.
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.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
New Richland, the town this property stands in, in 33 storm reports between 1994 and 2024: 13 hail, 12 thunderstorm wind, 2 funnel cloud, 2 flash flood.
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.
There were photos of large tree branches down across town and several trees snapped near their base. Some branches were down on homes and power lines were down. Time was estimated via radar.
Emergency Management in Waseca County reported that street and small stream flooding was occurring in and about three miles north of New Richland, MN. There were also reports of numerous structures and homes with flooded basements. Approximately two miles north of New Richland, a trained spotter reported that heavy rains were allowing Boot Creek to flow about six feet out of its banks and it started to run over 120th Street (Paved elevated road). Approximately three miles north of New Richland, MN, heavy rainfall caused flooding of a roadway which cut off access to a household's driveway. New Richland City Administration confirmed that flash flood waters receded within 24 hours and no longer posed a threat to public safety.
A damage survey noted several trees were damaged at a farmstead, with large branches down. Satellite imagery showed more details to the tornado path. A time-stamped photo from a storm chaser showed a visible funnel in the area where the tornado damage occurred, and the photo was consistent with the tornado being in the flanking line.
Radar shows this tornado occurred with a flanking line, just south of precipitation echoes. A damage survey revealed mostly corn damage, but some large branches were knocked down at a farmstead and some plywood was blown into a field. The damage survey revealed it was tornadic. Satellite imagery revealed more detail about the exact path through fields. Storm chaser video definitely shows the tornado and correct time, which was consistent with this being a tornado from a flanking line.
Runoff from torrential rainfall that occurred across most of Waseca County Wednesday night, September 21st, caused numerous roads to remain impassable and closed.
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
1 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.
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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