Marcell Ranger Station

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.

From the record

“The Marcell Ranger Station is a historic United States Forest Service ranger station in Marcell Township, Minnesota. It was built from 1934 to 1935 to serve as the headquarters for the Marcell District of Chippewa National Forest.”
Wikipedia article Marcell Ranger Station, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 19 National Register listings published here for Itasca County · listed in 1994 · category: District.

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

The listing

Address. Chippewa NF, Marcell Township, Bigfork, 56657
When was it listed? May 1994
Category. district
Township. Marcell township
Architectural style. National Park Service rustic
Architect. United States Forest Service
National Register reference number. 94000473 - 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

36 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 36 fires within 5 miles of Marcell Ranger Station between 1992 and 2020, burning about 67 acres in total. None started naturally. 1 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	15
Power generation/transmission/distribution	7
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	7
Recreation and ceremony	2
Smoking	2
Equipment and vehicle use	2
Arson/incendiarism	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
7 August 2006	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Chippewa National Forest	SWAMP FIRE
29 August 1996	Smoking	under an acre	Chippewa National Forest	BLUEBERRY
21 August 1994	Recreation and ceremony	2.0 acres	Chippewa National Forest	not named
20 August 1995	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
29 July 2003	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Chippewa National Forest	PAINT
6 June 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Chippewa National Forest	JACK
26 June 2015	Power generation/transmission/distribution	under an acre	Chippewa National Forest	MAC
7 May 2005	Power generation/transmission/distribution	under an acre	Chippewa National Forest	MATT ZIMMER ROAD

Every fire recorded in Itasca County

Storms near this property

16 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Bigfork, the town this property stands in, in 16 storm reports between 1997 and 2022: 8 hail, 7 thunderstorm wind, 1 heavy rain. The reports record 1 injury. 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
July 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Bigfork	1 hurt	no account filed
July 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Bigfork	-	A home was damaged when a large uprooted spruce tree fell on it.
August 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Bigfork	-	A large tree was blown onto a house. The house received minor damages.
June 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Bigfork	-	Numerous foot-diameter trees were blown down.
June 2011	Hail	Bigfork	-	A wind gust of 30 knots was also measured.
June 2011	Heavy Rain	Bigfork	-	Five and a quarter inches of rain fell since the previous night.
July 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Bigfork	-	Several trees were blown down. Wind speed is estimated.
August 2022	Hail	Bigfork	-	no account filed
June 2018	Hail	Bigfork	-	no account filed
July 2003	Hail	Bigfork	-	no account filed
July 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Bigfork	-	no account filed
July 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Bigfork	-	no account filed
July 1999	Hail	Bigfork	-	no account filed
June 1999	Hail	Bigfork	-	no account filed
May 1998	Hail	Bigfork	-	no account filed
June 1997	Hail	Bigfork	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Itasca 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.

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 94000473 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Itasca County	All 19 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.
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.