Valley Grove

Built in 1862 (Greek Revival architecture). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

From the record

“Valley Grove is a historic Lutheran church complex in Wheeling Township, Minnesota, United States. It consists of two 19th-century churches surrounded by a hilltop cemetery.”
Wikipedia article Valley Grove (Wheeling Township, Minnesota), CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 76 National Register listings published here for Rice County · listed in 1982 · category: Building · built in 1862, Greek Revival architecture.

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

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 2 buildingss, 1 site as contributing to the listing.
Address. CR 29 off MI Hwy. 246, Nerstrand, 55053
When was it listed? April 1982
Category. building
Also known as. Rice County MRA
Township. Wheeling township
When was it built? 1862
Architectural style. Greek Revival architecture
National Register reference number. 82003026 - 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

7,431 words

This property stands in Wheeling Township. History of Rice County, Including Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota and Outline History of the State of Minnesota, published 1882 gives that township a chapter of its own.

The chapter covers the township.

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 Wheeling Township - 7,431 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Mines and quarries near this property

4 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 4 workings within 5 miles of Valley Grove: 4 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
Donkers Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Kielmeyer Rice Co Ls Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Sherwin Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Wheeling Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer

Every working recorded in Rice County

Storms near this property

16 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Nerstrand, the town this property stands in, in 16 storm reports between 1998 and 2024: 6 hail, 5 thunderstorm wind, 2 tornado, 1 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 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Nerstrand	$100,000	A storm spotter had pictures of grain bin and roof damage southeast of Northfield.
August 2024	Funnel Cloud	Nerstrand	-	Multiple reports of a funnel cloud with photos but no precip on radar. High-based clouds in the pictures.
April 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Nerstrand	-	An 18 inch diameter tree was blown down and blocking a roadway.
August 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Nerstrand	-	A storm survey noted tin blown off part of a large machine shed. About a dozen trees were broken. All damage was blown to the east-northeast. It is possible the tornado east of Nerstrand started in this area, but that was impossible to determine.
August 2018	Tornado (EF0)	Nerstrand	-	A storm survey determined that a tornado hit a farm east of Nerstrand. Several trees were downed, and a shed was destroyed. The wind also blew down a power pole, landing on a barn which then caught on fire. The tornado may have started southwest of Nerstrand, but it was impossible to determine from the damage pattern. Maximum winds were estimated at around 70 mph.
June 2012	Heavy Rain	Nerstrand	-	A measured rainfall report of 6.40 inches occurred in less than 18 hours.
June 2012	Flash Flood	Nerstrand	-	Excessive rainfall in a short period of time caused Highway 246 at County Road 26 to close due to high water.
August 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Nerstrand	-	Several large tree branches were blown down north of Nerstrand, Minnesota.
October 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Nerstrand	-	A tree was downed 1/4 mile south of town.
July 2024	Hail	Nerstrand	-	no account filed
July 2024	Hail	Nerstrand	-	no account filed
May 2012	Hail	Nerstrand	-	no account filed
July 2008	Hail	Nerstrand	-	no account filed
August 2006	Hail	Nerstrand	-	no account filed
May 2002	Hail	Nerstrand	-	no account filed
June 1998	Tornado (F0)	Nerstrand	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Rice 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

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.

Property	Distance	Listed
Bonde Farmhouse	1.2 miles	1982
Nerstrand City Hall	2.1 miles	1982
Osmund Osmundson House	2.2 miles	1982
Veblen Farmstead	2.8 miles	1975
Edwin S. Drake Farmhouse	5.4 miles	1982
Church of the Holy Cross-Episcopal	6.7 miles	1982

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 82003026 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Rice County	All 76 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.
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.