Brandon Auditorium and Fire Hall

Built in 1936. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

From the record

“The Brandon Auditorium and Fire Hall, on Holmes Ave. in Brandon, Minnesota, is a historic fire station and other facility. It has also been known as the Brandon Auditorium and City Hall.”
Wikipedia article Brandon Auditorium and Fire Hall, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 13 National Register listings published here for Douglas County · listed in 1985 · category: Building · built in 1936.

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

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. Holmes Ave., Brandon, 56315
When was it listed? August 1985
Category. building
Township. Brandon township
When was it built? 1936
National Register reference number. 85001928 - 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

21 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 21 fires within 5 miles of Brandon Auditorium and Fire Hall between 1992 and 2018, burning about 407 acres in total. None started naturally. 4 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	13
Arson/incendiarism	4
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2
Equipment and vehicle use	1
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
2 September 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fergus Falls Wetland Management District	BANKE SLOUGH
16 June 1997	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
2 May 1999	Arson/incendiarism	1.0 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
17 May 2007	Smoking	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
16 May 2009	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
9 April 1998	Arson/incendiarism	8.0 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
5 April 1992	Debris and open burning	40 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
30 April 2008	Debris and open burning	7.2 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named

Every fire recorded in Douglas County

Storms near this property

33 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Brandon, the town this property stands in, in 33 storm reports between 1998 and 2017: 20 hail, 11 thunderstorm wind, 2 tornado. 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 2010	Tornado (EF1)	Brandon	$50,000	A barn, three sheds, two grain bins, and a rabbit hutch were destroyed.
July 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Brandon	$15,000	Several large trees and power lines were blown down.
August 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Brandon	$15,000	Several trees and power lines were blown down north of Brandon, Minnesota.
July 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Brandon	$10,000	Straight line winds caused several 12 inch diameter trees to be blown down, along with a trailer flipped over near Brandon, Minnesota.
September 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Brandon	-	About one dozen trees were broken or uprooted at two farms south of Brandon. A barn at the northern end of the damage lost part of its roof as wind got in through an open door. It appeared the damage was due to a downburst.
September 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Brandon	-	Dozens of trees were broken or uprooted from the area just north of Brandon to Leaf Valley Township. It appeared the damage was definitely due to a downburst, with a divergent pattern at Devils Lake.
July 2017	Tornado (EF0)	Brandon	-	The tornado knocked down a few dozen trees, but there was no structural damage.
July 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Brandon	-	Several large trees were uprooted in Brandon.
August 2011	Hail	Brandon	-	In addition, a 48 mph wind gust was measured near Brandon, from a personal weather station.
August 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Brandon	-	Several large trees were blown down, along with a street sign.
August 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Brandon	-	A few trees were blown down near Brandon, Minnesota.
July 2010	Hail	Brandon	-	Several large hail reports, up to golf ball size hail, occurred from south of Brandon, to near Lake Oscar in southern Douglas County.
June 2010	Hail	Brandon	-	Two separate storms produced up to tennis ball size hail around Brandon, Minnesota.
July 2008	Hail	Brandon	-	Hail turned the gound white.
June 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Brandon	-	Metal flagpole blown down. Numerous 2 inch diameter branches downed.
May 2006	Hail	Brandon	-	Hail covered the ground. Some minor street flooding also reported.
March 2004	Hail	Brandon	-	Dime sized hail fell.
June 2003	Hail	Brandon	-	Numerous fields in two townships were hit with golf ball size hail along with winds around 45 knots. Crop losses estimated by Douglas County agriculture officials.
June 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Brandon	-	Two foot diameter trees blown down. Grain bin blown down.
July 2017	Hail	Brandon	-	no account filed
April 2012	Hail	Brandon	-	no account filed
May 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Brandon	-	no account filed
July 2011	Hail	Brandon	-	no account filed
August 2010	Hail	Brandon	-	no account filed
August 2007	Hail	Brandon	-	no account filed
April 2006	Hail	Brandon	-	no account filed
June 2005	Hail	Brandon	-	no account filed
April 2004	Hail	Brandon	-	no account filed
May 2004	Hail	Brandon	-	no account filed
August 2003	Hail	Brandon	-	no account filed
August 2002	Hail	Brandon	-	no account filed
June 2001	Hail	Brandon	-	no account filed
August 1998	Hail	Brandon	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Douglas 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.

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 85001928 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Douglas County	All 13 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.