Height of Land Portage

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

From the record

“Height of Land Portage is a historic portage route between the Embarrass River and the Pike River in St. The 4.6-mile (7.4 km) route crosses the Laurentian Divide, providing access between the Hudson Bay drainage basin and the Great Lakes Basin.”
Wikipedia article Height of Land Portage (St. Louis County), CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 126 National Register listings published here for St. Louis County · listed in 1992 · category: District.

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

The listing

Address. Off Co. Rd. 138, Embarrass, White and Pike Townships, Embarrass, 55732
When was it listed? July 1992
Category. district
Also known as. Portage Trails in Minnesota MPS
Township. White township
National Register reference number. 92000842 - 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

75 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 75 fires within 5 miles of Height of Land Portage between 1992 and 2020, burning about 2,811 acres in total. 4 started naturally. 11 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	25
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	15
Arson/incendiarism	11
Equipment and vehicle use	9
Recreation and ceremony	5
Natural	4
Power generation/transmission/distribution	3
Other causes	2
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
9 September 2007	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
4 September 2005	Natural	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
30 September 2012	Equipment and vehicle use	1.0 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
14 September 2006	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
25 August 2013	Natural	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
18 August 2007	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	4.0 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
18 August 2007	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	7.0 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
8 July 2007	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named

Every fire recorded in St. Louis County

Mines and quarries near this property

3 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 3 workings within 5 miles of Height of Land Portage: 2 producers, 1 past producer. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Iron. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Donora Mine	Iron	Past Producer	Hematite, Magnetite
Erie Mining Co Pit No 1	Iron	Producer
Erie Pit No 9 North	Iron	Producer

Every working recorded in St. Louis County

Storms near this property

13 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Embarrass, the town this property stands in, in 13 storm reports between 1996 and 2025: 7 hail, 5 thunderstorm wind, 1 lightning. 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 2022	Hail	Embarrass	$5,000	Damage to vehicles from the hail was reported as well.
August 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Embarrass	-	A tree was down across the road.
May 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Embarrass	-	Several trees and numerous branches were blown down in Embarrass.
August 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Embarrass	-	There were trees down near the intersection of Highway 21/26 and Road 969.
July 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Embarrass	-	Trees and power lines were down.
July 2006	Lightning	Embarrass	-	A barn burned down after being struck by lightning.
April 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Embarrass	-	Trees were damaged and blown down.
May 2020	Hail	Embarrass	-	no account filed
June 2018	Hail	Embarrass	-	no account filed
September 2017	Hail	Embarrass	-	no account filed
July 2006	Hail	Embarrass	-	no account filed
April 2004	Hail	Embarrass	-	no account filed
June 1996	Hail	Embarrass	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in St. Louis 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
Matt and Emma Hill Historic Farmstead	2.4 miles	1990
Finnish Apostolic Lutheran Church of Embarrass	4.3 miles	2023
Erick and Kristina Nelimark Sauna	5.6 miles	1990
Mike and Mary Matson Historic Farmstead	5.9 miles	1990
Anna and Mikko Pyhala Farm	6.0 miles	2003
Gregorius and Mary Hanka Historic Farmstead	6.3 miles	1990

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 92000842 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
St. Louis County	All 126 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.