Westgaard Bridge

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.

From the record

“The Westgaard Bridge, also known as Souris River Bridge, near Voltaire, North Dakota is a Pratt pony truss through structure that was built in 1902 to cross the Souris River. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.”
Wikipedia article Westgaard Bridge, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 10 National Register listings published here for McHenry County · listed in 1997 · category: Structure.

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 structure as contributing to the listing.
Address. Across the Sheyenne River, unnamed co. rd., approximately 6 mi. N and 1 mi. E of Voltaire, Voltaire, 58790
When was it listed? February 1997
Category. structure
Also known as. Historic Roadway Bridges of North Dakota MPS
Township. Hendrickson township
National Register reference number. 97000180 - 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 2005

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 4 fires within 5 miles of Westgaard Bridge between 2005 and 2019, burning about 59 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
Railroad operations and maintenance	1
Recreation and ceremony	1
Equipment and vehicle use	1
Power generation/transmission/distribution	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
5 August 2015	Railroad operations and maintenance	15 acres	North Dakota State Forest Service	KELLER CRP BNRAIL
9 May 2018	Power generation/transmission/distribution	2.0 acres	North Dakota State Forest Service	509182
20 May 2019	Equipment and vehicle use	2.0 acres	North Dakota State Forest Service	2019-12
12 November 2005	Recreation and ceremony	40 acres	North Dakota State Forest Service	not named

Every fire recorded in McHenry County

Storms near this property

14 since 1999

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Voltaire, the town this property stands in, in 14 storm reports between 1999 and 2025: 6 hail, 4 tornado, 3 thunderstorm wind, 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
June 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Voltaire	$350,000	Extensive damage occurred to the grain elevator at Voltaire. Two large grain bins were blown completely over with other bins damaged. In addition, the grain leg connecting all the bins from the main terminal was blown off.
July 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Voltaire	$150,000	Large grain bins were damaged with one being knocked over. This was in an area which had damaging wind gusts earlier in the summer.
June 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Voltaire	$40,000	The strong thunderstorm winds overturned a semi-trailer.
August 2023	Tornado (EFU)	Voltaire	-	This tornado, a landspout, touched down in an open field south-southeast of Voltaire and impacted no structures. There was no damage to evaluate and so by National Weather Service policy the tornado is rated EF Unknown. This was the first of two landspout tornadoes in the Voltaire area of McHenry County this day, 12 minutes apart, from two different thunderstorms.
August 2023	Tornado (EFU)	Voltaire	-	This tornado, a landspout, touched down in an open field southwest of Voltaire and impacted no structures. There was no damage to evaluate and so by National Weather Service policy the tornado is rated EF Unknown. This was the second of two landspout tornadoes in the Voltaire area of McHenry County this day, 12 minutes apart, from two different thunderstorms.
August 2008	Tornado (EF0)	Voltaire	-	The public reported this tornado as being briefly on the ground. There was no damage and no reports of structures being impacted.
June 2002	Flash Flood	Voltaire	-	Rainfall reports of 6 inches fell with the storm with several inches of standing water in streets and yards.
August 1999	Tornado (F0)	Voltaire	-	Tornado briefly on ground before lifting back into the clouds.
September 2024	Hail	Voltaire	-	no account filed
July 2015	Hail	Voltaire	-	no account filed
June 2012	Hail	Voltaire	-	no account filed
July 2011	Hail	Voltaire	-	no account filed
July 2010	Hail	Voltaire	-	no account filed
June 2004	Hail	Voltaire	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in McHenry 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

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.

Photograph	Property	Distance	Listed
	Alfred and Clara Sevareid House	6.7 miles	1996
	Hotel Berry	6.8 miles	1982

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 97000180 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
McHenry County	All 10 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.