Whitewater State Park CCC/WPA/Rustic Style Historic Resources

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

From the record

One of 50 National Register listings published here for Winona County · listed in 1989 · category: District.

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

The listing

Address. Off MN 74, SW of Elba, Elba, 55972
When was it listed? October 1989
Category. district
Also known as. Minnesota State Park CCC/WPA/Rustic Style MPS
Township. Elba township
Architectural style. National Park Service rustic
National Register reference number. 89001661 - 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

1,101 words

The chapter on Elba Township in History of Winona County, published 1883 names Elba. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.

Elba is situated in T. 107 N., R. 10 W. Its boundaries are, on the north Whitewater township, on the east Norton, on the south St. Charles, and on the west Olmsted county. The surface is very much broken, and is covered by three deep valle_ys, which in turn are traversed by three prominent streams. There are three branches of the Whitewater river, the north branch, the east branch and the middle branch. These unite at the village of Elba, on Sec. 10, and form one principal stream, which flows north and leaves the township on Sec. 2. Whitewater river is formed by numerous springs arising from the bluffs, and furnishes excellent water-power for a number of mills along its course. The streams abound in speckled trout, and the country is much visited all through the summer months by Ashing parties in quest of sport. The bluffs along the valley are from 350 to 400 feet in height, and form some of the most beautiful scenes in that section of the country.

Passage source: History of Winona County, published 1883.

There are two churches, the German Catholic at Elba village, and the United Brethren on Sec. 21. The latter was built in 1876. It is 30x40 feet, with a spire forty feet tall. They have a congregation of perhaps seventy-five members, composed mostly of Germans. The first minister was Rev. Reiswick, the present one is Rev. J. Gutensohn. Attached to the church is a cemetery and two acres of land.

Passage source: History of Winona County, published 1883.

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 Elba Township - 1,101 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Fires near this property

15 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 15 fires within 5 miles of Whitewater State Park CCC/WPA/Rustic Style Historic Resources between 1992 and 2018, burning about 35 acres in total. None started naturally. 2 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
Smoking	5
Debris and open burning	5
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2
Arson/incendiarism	2
Equipment and vehicle use	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
27 June 2002	Smoking	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
13 June 1992	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
3 April 2016	Debris and open burning	4.0 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
26 April 2018	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
17 April 2007	Smoking	2.0 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
15 April 2009	Debris and open burning	16 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
15 April 2006	Arson/incendiarism	2.0 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
12 April 2009	Arson/incendiarism	1.0 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named

Every fire recorded in Winona County

Mines and quarries near this property

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Whitewater State Park CCC/WPA/Rustic Style Historic Resources: 1 producer. All of them still produce. What was taken out: 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.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Kieffer Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer

Every working recorded in Winona County

Storms near this property

9 since 2005

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Elba, the town this property stands in, in 9 storm reports between 2005 and 2024: 3 hail, 2 flood, 2 thunderstorm wind, 2 flash flood. 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
August 2007	Flood	Elba	$60,000	The Middle Fork of the Whitewater River at Whitewater State Park reached a record crest of 19.24 feet. Flood stage is 13.5 feet. The rapid rise of flood waters forced the evacuation of campers throughout the park.
June 2017	Flash Flood	Elba	$25,000	Runoff from heavy rain caused flood waters to flow down a dry run along County Highway 37 between Elba and Altura. The flood waters caused the road bank to erode in several places.
July 2016	Flash Flood	Elba	$10,000	Locally heavy rains produced flash flooding in the Whitewater State Park. This flooding washed out some trail bridges and flooded campsites.
August 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Elba	$10,000	Trees were blown down at a campground near Elba. The high winds also damaged a picnic shelter, destroyed a storage shed and one of the fallen trees went through the roof of a trailer.
June 2012	Flood	Elba	$5,000	Around 2.5 inches of rain fell in an hour and a half across Whitewater State Park. This sent Trout Run Creek out of its banks producing a debris jamb against a low walking bridge and washed out part of a gravel road.
August 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Elba	$5,000	A fifteen inch diameter tree was snapped thirty feet above the ground near Whitewater State Park and other trees in the area were pushed over. Corn was flattened with some snapped on the top portion of the stalks.
July 2024	Hail	Elba	-	The public reported quarter sized hail 2 miles east of Elba. The report was relayed via mPING.
May 2018	Hail	Elba	-	Quarter sized hail fell in the Whitewater State Park.
June 2005	Hail	Elba	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Winona 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
William Hemmelberg House	4.2 miles	1986
St. Charles City Bakery	5.0 miles	1984
Whitewater Avenue Commercial Historic District	5.1 miles	1984
Trinity Episcopal Church	5.2 miles	1984
Nicholas Marnach House	5.2 miles	1978
Benjamin Ellsworth House	6.5 miles	1984

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 89001661 in Record Group 79.
Winona County	All 50 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.
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.