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Fessenden, North Dakota

10 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1948 and the latest in 1981. It stands in Fessenden City. It lies in ZIP code area 58438. The Survey maps it on the Fessenden West quadrangle. 462 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,611 feet above sea level.

Fessenden within Wells County

On record in Fessenden

Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.

On the National Register 3 records

Population over time

2 figures

Fessenden fell from 479 to 462 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

YearPeople Change
2010479
2020462-17 (-4%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 surveys from 10 printed sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

Fires near this place

2 since 1999

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 2 fires within 5 miles of Fessenden between 1999 and 2016, burning about 144 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
Arson/incendiarism1
Debris and open burning1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
28 April 2016Arson/incendiarism133 acresChase Lake National Wildlife RefugeHOORNAERT WPA
9 December 1999Debris and open burning11 acresChase Lake Prairie Project Wetland Management DistrictSCHLINDLER

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Wells County

Storms near this place

23 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Fessenden in 23 storm reports between 1997 and 2025: 15 hail, 6 thunderstorm wind, 1 tornado, 1 flash flood. 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
August 2021HailFessenden$300,000Multiple vehicles and roofs were damaged.
June 2025Thunderstorm WindFessenden$75,000Numerous trees near the house and in a nearby shelter belt uprooted or snapped. Small shed demolished. Roof partially torn off of a small horse shed.
June 2010Thunderstorm WindFessenden$50,000Severe thunderstorm wind gusts resulted in extensive tree damage in and around the city of Fessenden. No structural damage was reported.
August 2007Flash FloodFessenden$40,000Rainfall of 6.5 inches in a 2 1/2 hour period caused flooding with water rushing over roads.
July 2002Thunderstorm WindFessenden-Storm traveled southeast along Highway 52. Numerous large trees down along its path.
July 2001Thunderstorm WindFessenden-Numerous tree branches and limbs down. A grain bin flatten by the wind. Visibility reduced to several yards in heavy rain driven rain.
July 2000Tornado (F0)Fessenden-Damage to trees and grain bins.
July 1999HailFessenden-Significant agricultural damage.
September 1997Thunderstorm WindFessenden-numerous large tree branches with isolated trees knocked down.
September 2025HailFessenden-no account filed
July 2023HailFessenden-no account filed
August 2021HailFessenden-no account filed
August 2019HailFessenden-no account filed
August 2019HailFessenden-no account filed
June 2011HailFessenden-no account filed
June 2011HailFessenden-no account filed
August 2007HailFessenden-no account filed
August 2002HailFessenden-no account filed
July 2001Thunderstorm WindFessenden-no account filed
May 2000HailFessenden-no account filed
July 2000HailFessenden-no account filed
July 2000HailFessenden-no account filed
May 1999HailFessenden-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Wells County

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
Manfred7.0 miles10
Emrick7.3 miles10
Hamberg9.9 miles10
Heimdal9.9 miles10
Heaton12.6 miles8
Bowdon13.1 miles8
Cathay13.4 miles10
Wellsburg14.4 miles10

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikipedia article on FessendenAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2080795The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 1028952. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

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.