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Nora Free Christian Church

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

From the record

“Nora Unitarian Universalist Church, originally called Nora Free Christian Church, is a historic church in Hanska, Minnesota, United States. The congregation was formed by a number of Brown County citizens who dissented from the Norwegian Lutheran community.”

Wikipedia article Nora Unitarian Universalist Church, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 38 National Register listings published here for Brown County · listed in 1988 · category: Building.

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 2 buildingss, 1 site, 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
  • Address. MN 257, Hanska, 56041
  • When was it listed? August 1988
  • Category. building
  • Township. Linden township
  • National Register reference number. 88001176 - 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.

Storms near this property

20 since 2002

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Hanska, the town this property stands in, in 20 storm reports between 2002 and 2026: 9 hail, 8 thunderstorm wind, 1 funnel cloud, 1 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
June 2019HailHanska$30,000A fire department spotter reported hail as large as two inches fell for around 15 minutes at Lake Hanska County Park. Nearby, Prairie Grounds Campground was also hit, with one camper totaled and another camper had hail punch holes through its plastic roof vents. A pontoon was also significantly damaged. Some crops in the area were destroyed.
September 2021Thunderstorm WindHanska$5,000An outbuilding was blown down near Hanska. A couple wind sensors near the area had a peak wind gust of 45 mph near Hanska, and 53 mph near Madelia.
May 2022Thunderstorm WindHanska$3,000A roof was torn off a farm outbuilding near Hanska.
June 2024Heavy RainHanska-A total of 3 to 4 inches of rain fell from multiple rounds of thunderstorms. CoCoRaHS observers measured 3.81 inches near Hanska.
December 2021Thunderstorm WindHanska-A local mesonet weather station measured a wind gusts of 51 knots.
August 2021Thunderstorm WindHanska-Several trees and large branches were broken. A few hundred acres of corn were flattened at County Road 20 and 130th Avenue. An adjacent short damage path was determined to have been associated with a misocyclone, based on the damage pattern, Sentinel satellite imagery, and radar. It was not possible to correlate the crop damage with any radar circulation.
June 2015Thunderstorm WindHanska-Two large trees and several large tree branches were blown down in the southwest part of Hanska. Crops were also damaged in parts of Lake Hanska Township. Power was out in Hanska for 4 hours.
May 2014Tornado (EF0)Hanska-A tornado touched down in the extreme northeastern corner of Watonwan County before crossing the extreme southeast corner of Brown County. It continued into Blue Earth County. During its time crossing Brown County, it crossed open fields. The tornado was caught on video by a storm chaser when it was in Blue Earth County.
May 2012HailHanska-Several spotters and the emergency manager reported a swath of hail stones from near the Watonwan, Brown county line, northeast to the Brown, Blue Earth county line. The largest hail stones were 1.25 inches in diameter.
May 2012HailHanska-Quarter size hail was observed for a few minutes north of Hanska, Minnesota.
June 2005Funnel CloudHanska-A funnel cloud was reported via HAM radio about 2 miles northeast of Godahl near the intersection of County Road 4 and 132.
April 2004Thunderstorm WindHanska-Siding was ripped off a church tower. The time was estimated.
June 2003Thunderstorm WindHanska-Several trees down.
August 2002Thunderstorm WindHanska-Several trees down, including one on car. Garage door blown in.
April 2026HailHanska-no account filed
April 2026HailHanska-no account filed
April 2026HailHanska-no account filed
June 2020HailHanska-no account filed
June 2008HailHanska-no account filed
June 2005HailHanska-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Brown 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.

Photograph PropertyDistance Listed
Bjorneberg Garage0.7 miles1979
Liberal Union Hall0.7 miles1979
Thormodson Barn2.2 miles1979

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 88001176 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Brown CountyAll 38 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.
  • 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.