Built in 1856. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
From the record
“Aurora Colony, also called Aurora Mills, was a Christian utopian communal society founded in 1856 by William Keil in modern-day Aurora, Oregon, US. At its peak in 1868, the Aurora Colony had about 600 people and 15,000 acres (6,100 ha) of land.”
Wikipedia article Aurora Colony, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 120 National Register listings published here for Marion County · listed in 1974 · category: District · built in 1856.
National Register reference number.74001696- 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
1 since 2017
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 1 fire within 5 miles of Aurora Colony Historic District
in 2017, burning under an acre 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
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.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
33 workings within 5 miles of Aurora Colony Historic District: 23 past producers, 10 producers.
10 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Stone, Clay. 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
Aurora, the town this property stands in, in 13 storm reports between 2005 and 2025: 12 flood, 1 lightning.
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.
A lightning strike damaged electrical and computer equipment at a sewage treatment plant, causing a back-up in sewage treatment and discharge, as well as extensive damage.
The Pudding River at Aurora reached flood stage at 1130 AM on February 16th 2014. The river crested at 22.4 feet at 500 AM on February 17th, and fell below flood level at 930 AM PST on February 18th.
Heavy rain combined with snowmelt runoff to produce flooding on the Pudding River. The Pudding River at Aurora crested at 23.3 feet on January 19th at 13:30 PST.
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.
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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