Photograph of James J. Hill's North Oaks Farm, Dairy Building — Photograph by McGhiever, CC BY-SA 3.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Hill's James, J., North Oaks Farm, Dairy Building

Built in 1884 (Colonial Revival architecture). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.

From the record

“North Oaks Farm, also known as Hill Farm, is an open-air museum in North Oaks, Minnesota, United States, preserving buildings of a 3,300-acre (1,300 ha) demonstration farm established by railroad magnate James J. Elements of the farm were listed on the National Register of Historic Places as James J.”
Wikipedia article North Oaks Farm, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 134 National Register listings published here for Ramsey County · listed in 1997 · category: Building · built in 1884, Colonial Revival architecture.

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

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. Red Barn Rd., jct. with Hill Farm Cir., North Oaks, 55127
When was it listed? May 1997
Category. building
City. North Oaks city
When was it built? 1884
Architectural style. Colonial Revival architecture
National Register reference number. 97000441 - 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

22 since 2000

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 22 fires within 5 miles of Hill's James, J., North Oaks Farm, Dairy Building between 2000 and 2020, burning about 261 acres in total. None started naturally. 6 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
Arson/incendiarism	6
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	6
Equipment and vehicle use	4
Debris and open burning	4
Smoking	1
Recreation and ceremony	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 May 2009	Equipment and vehicle use	12 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	RED ARROW
31 May 2009	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
3 May 2005	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
17 May 2002	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	35 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
9 April 2005	Arson/incendiarism	53 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	CENTENIAL FIRE
8 April 2000	Smoking	1.2 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
6 April 2000	Arson/incendiarism	25 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
29 April 2000	Arson/incendiarism	1.0 acres	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named

Every fire recorded in Ramsey County

Mines and quarries near this property

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Hill's James, J., North Oaks Farm, Dairy Building: 1 producer, 1 occurrence. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Clay. 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
	Anoka County Clay Deposit	Clay	Occurrence
	Arsenal Sand and Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Every working recorded in Ramsey County

Storms near this property

7 since 2007

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names North Oaks, the town this property stands in, in 7 storm reports between 2007 and 2019: 6 hail, 1 thunderstorm wind. 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 2013	Hail	North Oaks	-	Dime size hail was reported in east central Shoreview.
July 2009	Hail	North Oaks	-	A trained spotter reported 1.5 diameter hail in northern Shoreview, along the Anoka, Ramsey County line.
July 2009	Hail	North Oaks	-	Several trained spotters reported quarter to half dollar size hail stones from portions of Shoreview to the area around Owasso Lake in northeastern Roseville.
August 2007	Hail	North Oaks	-	Hail occurred in Shoreview.
August 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	North Oaks	-	Six inch branch broken off in Shoreview.
July 2019	Hail	North Oaks	-	no account filed
September 2016	Hail	North Oaks	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Ramsey 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
Hill's, James J., North Oaks Farm, Dairy Building, Granary Root Cellar and Auxiliary Buildings, Boundary Increase	0.6 miles	1999
E. H. Hobe House-Solheim	4.4 miles	1983
First National Bank of White Bear	4.9 miles	1983
Cyrus B. Cobb House	5.0 miles	1983
White Bear Lake Armory	5.0 miles	2019
Charles P. Noyes Cottage	5.2 miles	1976

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 97000441 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Ramsey County	All 134 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.