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.
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
Wells County Courthouselisted 1977- Beiseker Mansionlisted 1977
- Wells County Fairgroundslisted 1991
Population over time
2 figuresFessenden 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.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 479 | |
| 2020 | 462 | -17 (-4%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
6 surveys from 10 printed sheetsMatched 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.
- 1948 USGS Fessenden quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1949 USGS Fessenden West quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
- 1952 USGS New Rockford quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1956 USGS New Rockford quadrangle1:250000
- 1971 USGS New Rockford quadrangle1:250000
- 1981 USGS New Rockford quadrangle1:100000
Fires near this place
2 since 1999Regional 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/incendiarism | 1 |
| Debris and open burning | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 April 2016 | Arson/incendiarism | 133 acres | Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge | HOORNAERT WPA |
| 9 December 1999 | Debris and open burning | 11 acres | Chase Lake Prairie Project Wetland Management District | SCHLINDLER |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
23 since 1997Regional 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.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 2021 | Hail | Fessenden | $300,000 | Multiple vehicles and roofs were damaged. |
| June 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Fessenden | $75,000 | Numerous 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 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Fessenden | $50,000 | Severe thunderstorm wind gusts resulted in extensive tree damage in and around the city of Fessenden. No structural damage was reported. |
| August 2007 | Flash Flood | Fessenden | $40,000 | Rainfall of 6.5 inches in a 2 1/2 hour period caused flooding with water rushing over roads. |
| July 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Fessenden | - | Storm traveled southeast along Highway 52. Numerous large trees down along its path. |
| July 2001 | Thunderstorm Wind | Fessenden | - | Numerous tree branches and limbs down. A grain bin flatten by the wind. Visibility reduced to several yards in heavy rain driven rain. |
| July 2000 | Tornado (F0) | Fessenden | - | Damage to trees and grain bins. |
| July 1999 | Hail | Fessenden | - | Significant agricultural damage. |
| September 1997 | Thunderstorm Wind | Fessenden | - | numerous large tree branches with isolated trees knocked down. |
| September 2025 | Hail | Fessenden | - | no account filed |
| July 2023 | Hail | Fessenden | - | no account filed |
| August 2021 | Hail | Fessenden | - | no account filed |
| August 2019 | Hail | Fessenden | - | no account filed |
| August 2019 | Hail | Fessenden | - | no account filed |
| June 2011 | Hail | Fessenden | - | no account filed |
| June 2011 | Hail | Fessenden | - | no account filed |
| August 2007 | Hail | Fessenden | - | no account filed |
| August 2002 | Hail | Fessenden | - | no account filed |
| July 2001 | Thunderstorm Wind | Fessenden | - | no account filed |
| May 2000 | Hail | Fessenden | - | no account filed |
| July 2000 | Hail | Fessenden | - | no account filed |
| July 2000 | Hail | Fessenden | - | no account filed |
| May 1999 | Hail | Fessenden | - | no account filed |
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.
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 Fessenden | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2080795 | The 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.





