Church of St. Mary Help of Christians-Catholic

Built in 1873 (Gothic Revival). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

From the record

“Mary Help of Christians Church is a historic Roman Catholic church building in St. It is part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saint Cloud.”
Wikipedia article St. Mary Help of Christians Church (St. Augusta, Minnesota), CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 36 National Register listings published here for Stearns County · listed in 1982 · category: Building · built in 1873, Gothic Revival.

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 as contributing to the listing.
Listed as. Church of St. Mary Help of Christians--Catholic - the National Register files a house under its owner's surname.
Address. Co. Hwy. 7, St. Augusta, 56301
When was it listed? April 1982
Category. building
Also known as. Stearns County MRA
City. St. Augusta city
When was it built? 1873
Architectural style. Gothic Revival
National Register reference number. 82003049 - 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

1,371 words

The chapter on St. Augusta City in History of Stearns County, Minnesota, published 1915 names St. Augusta. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.

St. Augusta Township lies in the southeastern part of the county. Its area is slightly in excess of that of a Congressional township, by reason of its eastern border being on the Mississippi River. The southern and eastern parts of the township are watered by Johnson's Creek and its tributaries, the waters of which empties into the Mississippi River. The surface is rolling and is largely covered with brush and light timber. In places the soil is rich, with a clay sub-soil, and in other places it is light and sandy.

Passage source: History of Stearns County, Minnesota, published 1915.

The first settlement was at the mouth of Johnson's Creek in 1854. John L. Wilson, together with John H. Fibbe, Anton Imholte, and J. J. and George Laudenbach, formed an association with a view of establishing a townsite at that place. During the following year a number of new settlers came in, and in 1856 land was surveyed and platted for a townsite called St. Augusta. Included in an omnibus act passed by the territorial legislature, approved May 19, 1857, was a provision designating a large amount of land in sections 6 and 7 as a town corporate under the name of St. Augusta, the corporate name of the organization to be the "Town Council of the Town of St. Augusta." Gowin Wilson was named as the first president, I with Charles W. Wilson, William A. i Corbett and R. H. Richmond as trustees, I these to appoint a recorder and all other I necessary officers. In 1864 the legislature I passed a special act, approved March 4, I amending the previous act for the purpose of "continuing the town organization of the town council of the town of St. Augusta," whereby John L. Wilson was appointed president, and R. H. Dingman, Henry Fietsam and Joseph Moeller, trustees, with power to execute all deeds, to such persons as might be entitled to them, in the said townsite.

Passage source: History of Stearns County, Minnesota, published 1915.

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 St. Augusta City - 1,371 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Fires near this property

44 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 44 fires within 5 miles of Church of St. Mary Help of Christians-Catholic between 1992 and 2018, burning about 232 acres in total. None started naturally. 5 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	16
Railroad operations and maintenance	13
Arson/incendiarism	5
Equipment and vehicle use	4
Recreation and ceremony	3
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2
Smoking	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
30 September 2000	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
25 September 1992	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
9 June 1997	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
8 June 1998	Railroad operations and maintenance	4.0 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
21 June 2008	Railroad operations and maintenance	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
21 June 2008	Railroad operations and maintenance	2.0 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
21 June 2008	Railroad operations and maintenance	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
21 June 2008	Railroad operations and maintenance	2.1 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named

Every fire recorded in Stearns County

Mines and quarries near this property

5 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 5 workings within 5 miles of Church of St. Mary Help of Christians-Catholic: 5 producers. All of them still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Granite. 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
Charcoal Gray Quarry	Granite	Producer
Granite City S and G Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Granite City Sand and Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Hardrives Pit and Mill	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Utz Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Every working recorded in Stearns 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
Model School	5.0 miles	1988
Michael Majerus House	5.3 miles	1978
John N. Bensen House	5.3 miles	1982
Foley-Brower-Bohmer House	5.3 miles	1978
Nehemiah P. Clarke House	5.4 miles	1982
St. Cloud Commercial Historic District	5.5 miles	1998

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 82003049 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Stearns County	All 36 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.