Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.
From the record
“The Lake Zumbro Hydroelectric Generating Plant, also known as the City of Rochester Municipal Hydro-Electric Plant, is a hydroelectric facility on the Zumbro River in Mazeppa and Zumbro Townships in the U. The facility consists of a gravity dam and a powerhouse, and formerly included three houses for the plant operators.”
Wikipedia article Lake Zumbro Hydroelectric Generating Plant, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 26 National Register listings published here for Wabasha County · listed in 1991 · category: Structure.
Also known as. Minnesota Hydroelectric Generating Facilities MPS
Township. Zumbro township
Architectural style. Neoclassical architecture
Architect. Hugh Lincoln Cooper
National Register reference number.91000243- 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
1,139 words
The chapter on Zumbro Township in History of Wabasha County, published 1884 names Mazeppa. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.
The territory now covered by Zumbro, Mazeppa and Hyde Park is just equal to two full townships and was originally known us Mazeppa and Concord. Concord was the name of the election precinct, in which it was situated at the time of the government survey. Afterward, in May, 1858, at a town meeting, the name of Troy was adopted by a vote of the people, by which name it was known till 1861 ; there being another town of the same name in the state, the legislature declined to endorse the action of the town meeting, and consequently it became necessary to call another meeting ; this time to consider the propriety of dividing the town as well as adopting another name.
Some time after the division into Hyde Park and Zumbro, and for the same reasons, all of that portion of Mazeppa east of the south branch of the Zumbro river was set off and added to the town of Zumbro. This gives to the township nearly sixteen miles of waterfront, and the land bordering on the river and its branch is extremely rough and broken, hardly fit for farming, and equal in extent to nearly one quarter of the whole township.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 3 fires within 5 miles of Lake Zumbro Hydroelectric Generating Plant
between 1992 and 1995, burning about 3 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
Smoking
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.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
2 workings within 5 miles of Lake Zumbro Hydroelectric Generating Plant: 2 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.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Mazeppa, the town this property stands in, in 15 storm reports between 1998 and 2025: 9 thunderstorm wind, 6 hail.
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.
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
4 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.
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.
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