Bethel Lutheran Church

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.

From the record

“Bethel Lutheran Church is a historic church located at Main and Fifth Streets in Faith, South Dakota. The church was built in 1925 by a Norwegian Lutheran congregation that formed in Faith in 1917.”
Wikipedia article Bethel Lutheran Church, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 27 National Register listings published here for Meade County · listed in 1986 · category: Building.

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 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. Main and Fifth Sts., Faith, 57626
When was it listed? April 1986
Category. building
Also known as. Rural Butte and Meade Counties MRA
City. Faith city
National Register reference number. 86000941 - 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

10 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 10 fires within 5 miles of Bethel Lutheran Church between 1996 and 2012, burning about 449 acres in total. 4 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
Natural	4
Equipment and vehicle use	2
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1
Arson/incendiarism	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
26 August 2004	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Cheyenne River Agency	BUTLER
20 August 1996	Natural	400 acres	Cheyenne River Agency	DUPREECOMP
2 August 2012	Natural	under an acre	Cheyenne River Agency	BADGER 2
8 July 2007	Natural	under an acre	South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression	not named
6 July 2007	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression	not named
12 July 2006	Natural	40 acres	South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression	not named
28 June 2010	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression	WEST DITCH COMPLEX
23 April 1998	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Cheyenne River Agency	MOSSMAN

Every fire recorded in Meade County

Storms near this property

60 of 64 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Faith, the town this property stands in, in 64 storm reports between 1994 and 2024: 32 hail, 28 thunderstorm wind, 3 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
July 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	$500,000	MANY TREES AND STRUCTURAL DAMAGE.
August 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	$250,000	Power lines were downed by winds. Several homes were damaged and 2 mobile homes were destroyed by high winds.
June 2003	Hail	Faith	$250,000	Large hail damaged homes and automobiles in Faith.
June 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	$150,000	Strong winds tore half the roof off a house and blew down two outbuildings on the south side of Faith. Several empty truck trailers were tipped over and large trees throughout town were broken and blown over. Several power poles were downed, causing the loss of electric service for about 36 hours in much of the town. Hail accumulated to a depth of 12 inches.
June 2005	Hail	Faith	$5,000	Siding on house damaged and windshield of automobile broken.
August 2004	Hail	Faith	$5,000	Windows were broken from the combination of hail and wind.
August 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	$5,000	Windows were broken from the combination of hail and wind.
May 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	$2,000	Thunderstorm wind gusts moved a calf shelter, lifted a water tank from the back of a pickup truck, and damaged trees.
July 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	-	Downed trees and impassable roads in Faith from 80 to 90 mph winds.
July 2024	Hail	Faith	-	Hail up to golf ball size covered the ground. The combination of hail and wind gusts to 50 mph stripped leaves from trees.
September 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	-	Strong winds gusting up to 90 mph damaged and downed power poles. A shed was blown onto a highway and four outbuildings were destroyed, including a barn that was ripped out of the ground.
August 2023	Flash Flood	Faith	-	Runoff from heavy rain caused 196th Place west-southwest of Faith to flood. Water also ponded in fields and ditches. Over three inches of rain fell in about two hours.
July 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	-	Winds were estimated at 60 mph.
July 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	-	Large trees were blown down by the wind.
July 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	-	The public estimated wind gusts at 60 mph.
May 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	-	Wind gusts were estimated at 70 mph.
July 2016	Hail	Faith	-	The storm also produced wind gusts to 50 mph.
June 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	-	Wind gusts were estimated at 60 mph.
June 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	-	The spotter estimated wind gusts at 60 mph.
August 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	-	Wind gusts were estimated at 65 mph.
July 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	-	Wind gusts were estimated at 70 mph.
May 2010	Tornado (EF0)	Faith	-	A second tornado touched down southwest of Faith and traveled north, dissipating shortly after it crossed U.S. Highway 212 west of Faith. It caused no damage.
August 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	-	Wind gusts were estimated at 60 mph.
June 2008	Hail	Faith	-	Hail accumulated three to four inches deep along Highway 212 west of Faith.
July 2005	Hail	Faith	-	Lots of nickel sized hail with a few hail stones to 3 inches in diameter.
July 2001	Tornado (F0)	Faith	-	A trained spotter reported a rapidly formed funnel cloud that briefly touched down, then dissipated.
July 2001	Tornado (F0)	Faith	-	A fireman, who was a trained storm spotter, reported seeing a tornado form and momentarily touch the ground south of Faith.
July 1997	Hail	Faith	-	Hail covered the ground.
June 2021	Hail	Faith	-	no account filed
July 2021	Hail	Faith	-	no account filed
August 2021	Hail	Faith	-	no account filed
June 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	-	no account filed
June 2020	Hail	Faith	-	no account filed
June 2020	Hail	Faith	-	no account filed
June 2020	Hail	Faith	-	no account filed
June 2020	Hail	Faith	-	no account filed
July 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	-	no account filed
May 2016	Hail	Faith	-	no account filed
June 2015	Hail	Faith	-	no account filed
June 2012	Hail	Faith	-	no account filed
June 2010	Hail	Faith	-	no account filed
August 2010	Hail	Faith	-	no account filed
June 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	-	no account filed
July 2008	Hail	Faith	-	no account filed
August 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	-	no account filed
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	-	no account filed
June 2007	Hail	Faith	-	no account filed
June 2007	Hail	Faith	-	no account filed
June 2006	Hail	Faith	-	no account filed
June 2006	Hail	Faith	-	no account filed
June 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	-	no account filed
July 2005	Hail	Faith	-	no account filed
July 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	-	no account filed
July 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	-	no account filed
July 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	-	no account filed
August 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	-	no account filed
June 2003	Hail	Faith	-	no account filed
July 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Faith	-	no account filed
July 2001	Hail	Faith	-	no account filed
June 2000	Hail	Faith	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Meade 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
	Minneapolis Brewing Company Beer Warehouse	0.3 miles	2001
	Municipal Building-City Hall	0.3 miles	2000

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 86000941 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Meade County	All 27 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.