Phelps Mill Historic District

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

From the record

One of 27 National Register listings published here for Otter Tail County · listed in 1984 · category: District.

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

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 3 buildingss as contributing to the listing.
Address. Co. Hwy. 45, Underwood, 56586
When was it listed? May 1984
Category. district
Township. Maine township
National Register reference number. 84001640 - 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

4 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 4 fires within 5 miles of Phelps Mill Historic District between 1992 and 2007, burning about 56 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
Debris and open burning	3
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	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
31 July 2007	Debris and open burning	1.5 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
7 April 2005	Debris and open burning	6.5 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
5 April 1992	Debris and open burning	2.5 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
18 April 1994	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	45 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named

Every fire recorded in Otter Tail County

Storms near this property

15 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Underwood, the town this property stands in, in 15 storm reports between 1997 and 2025: 7 thunderstorm wind, 6 hail, 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.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
May 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Underwood	$70,000	Large trees were blown down and a travel trailer was crushed by falling trees on South Turtle Lake. Time estimated based on radar.
October 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Underwood	$20,000	A metal quonset shed was destroyed.
July 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Underwood	$500	A tree was blown down across a road north of Underwood.
May 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Underwood	-	Wind gust measured by 33 ft ndawn sensor.
June 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Underwood	-	Many large tree branches were blown down and a few trees were toppled by the strong winds. Some small hail also fell along with over three inches of rain.
August 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Underwood	-	Trees were blown down and twisted off. Several small sheds or fish houses were blown over and at least one heavily damaged between Wall Lake and Bass Lake.
September 2005	Hail	Underwood	-	Dime to nickel sized hail fell along with two inches of rain.
August 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Underwood	-	Trees and branches were blown down around North Turtle Lake.
August 2005	Hail	Underwood	-	The large hail smashed into homes, vehicles, and crops. One nursery was hit particularly hard, with greenhouses, plants, and a number of vehicles damaged.
July 1998	Flash Flood	Underwood	-	5 1/2 inches of rain flattened many crops and filled ditches around Underwood.
September 2018	Funnel Cloud	Underwood	-	no account filed
June 2007	Hail	Underwood	-	no account filed
October 2006	Hail	Underwood	-	no account filed
September 2005	Hail	Underwood	-	no account filed
July 1998	Hail	Underwood	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Otter Tail 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
Phelps Mill	under 500 feet	1975
District No. 182 School	2.2 miles	1991
Ole and Anne Foss House	6.8 miles	2025

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 84001640 in Record Group 79.
Otter Tail County	All 27 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.
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.