BlockFrom the record
One of 16 National Register listings published here for Houston County · listed in 1990 · category: Structure.
Sources: the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service
Bridge No. L4013
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.
The listing
- What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
- Address. Twp. Rd. 126 over Riceford Cr., Spring Grove, 55974
- When was it listed? July 1990
- Category. structure
- Also known as. Minnesota Masonry-Arch Highway Bridges MPS
- Township. Black Hammer township
- National Register reference number. 90000976 - 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
1,062 wordsThe chapter on Black Hammer Township in History of Houston County, Minnesota, published 1919 names Spring Grove. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.
the country, unless some former residents may have bestowed it upon some newer settlement farther west. The name was derived in the following manner. Knud Olson Bergo, who was living just across the town line in Spring Grove, on getting up one morning saw that a fire had swept over the prairie in the south part of the township to the north, including a bluff which formed part of sections 27, 28 and 34. Its charred appearance at once suggested to his mind a certain bluff located in Slidre Valders, Norway, which was Mr. Bergo's birthplace, and so he exclaimed in Norwegian, "Sort Hammer," which signifies "Black Bluff and the peole have had the good sense to retain the name to this day, which, it will be perceived, is composed of an English and a Norwegian name. Mr. Bergo died many years ago and was buried in Spring Grove cemetery. In the early eighties his widow was living with her only daughter Mrs. Knud S. Nohre, near Riceford. The only son, Ole, removed to one of the western counties in the state.
Passage source: History of Houston County, Minnesota, published 1919.
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 Black Hammer Township - 1,062 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.
Fires near this property
5 since 1993Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 5 fires within 5 miles of Bridge No. L4013 between 1993 and 2004, burning about 25 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 | 2 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 April 2004 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 4 April 2004 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 29 April 1993 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 16 April 2004 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 23 March 2003 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 24 acres | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
Mines and quarries near this property
5 within 5 milesRegional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 5 workings within 5 miles of Bridge No. L4013: 5 producers. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brumm Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Producer | ||
| Eggert Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Producer | ||
| Otterness Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Producer | ||
| Rauk Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Producer | ||
| Roverud Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Producer |
Storms near this property
14 since 1997Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Spring Grove, the town this property stands in, in 14 storm reports between 1997 and 2025: 7 hail, 6 thunderstorm wind, 1 heavy rain. 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 2024 | Thunderstorm Wind | Spring Grove | $25,000 | Law enforcement reported power lines down in Spring Grove. |
| June 1998 | Thunderstorm Wind | Spring Grove | $12,000 | no account filed |
| August 2018 | Heavy Rain | Spring Grove | $10,000 | Rainfall totaled 6.50 inches during this time frame. |
| June 1997 | Thunderstorm Wind | Spring Grove | $8,000 | no account filed |
| May 2007 | Thunderstorm Wind | Spring Grove | $2,500 | no account filed |
| July 2003 | Thunderstorm Wind | Spring Grove | $1,250 | no account filed |
| March 2025 | Hail | Spring Grove | - | Quarter sized hail was reported by the public in Spring Grove, Minnesota. |
| July 2014 | Hail | Spring Grove | - | Quarter sized hail fell in Spring Grove. |
| September 2012 | Hail | Spring Grove | - | Up to tennis ball sized hail was reported in Spring Grove. |
| August 2018 | Hail | Spring Grove | - | no account filed |
| September 2012 | Hail | Spring Grove | - | no account filed |
| May 2003 | Hail | Spring Grove | - | no account filed |
| June 2000 | Thunderstorm Wind | Spring Grove | - | no account filed |
| June 1998 | Hail | Spring Grove | - | no account filed |
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
2 within 8 milesOther 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 | Property | Distance | Listed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ballard Hotel | 5.4 miles | 2017 | |
| Schech Mill | 7.0 miles | 1978 |
Sources for this property
| National Archives record | The nomination case file for reference 90000976 in Record Group 79. |
| Houston County | All 16 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.