Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
From the record
“The Former McLean County Courthouse in Washburn, North Dakota was built in 1905 to replace a courthouse that had burned down, and was used as a courthouse until 1917, when the new McLean County Courthouse was built.”
Wikipedia article Former McLean County Courthouse, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 8 National Register listings published here for McLean County · listed in 1985 · category: Building.
National Register reference number.85002987- 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
4 since 2017
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 4 fires within 5 miles of Former McLean County Courthouse
between 2017 and 2020, burning about 5 acres in total. None started naturally. None 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
Equipment and vehicle use
3
Fireworks
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
2 workings within 5 miles of Former McLean County Courthouse: 1 past producer, 1 unknown.
None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Washburn, the town this property stands in, in 47 storm reports between 1998 and 2025: 24 hail, 17 thunderstorm wind, 3 tornado, 1 funnel cloud.
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.
Many trees were blown down in the park along the river in Washburn, at the 4-H camp, and throughout the city. The concession stand and outhouses were blown over at the baseball park. Some buildings were damaged.
Electrical appliances in a home were damaged due to a lightning strike on a tree near the home. Also damaged was a vehicle which had its side window blown out.
The tornado touched down in an open field east-southeast of Washburn and impacted no structures. There was no damage to evaluate. By National Weather Service policy the tornado is rated EF-U (Unknown).
Tornado originated in Burleigh county before moving into southeast McLean county. The tornado skipped across the country side damaging several power poles.
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
2 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.
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.
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