Zoar Norwegian Lutheran Church

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.

From the record

“The Zoar Norwegian Lutheran Church is a historic church in rural northeastern Day County, South Dakota. It is a modest wood-frame structure, set on a rise south of County Road 4 northeast of Pickerel Lake.”
Wikipedia article Zoar Norwegian Lutheran Church, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 13 National Register listings published here for Day County · listed in 1990 · 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. 7 mi. E, 5 mi. N of Grenville, Grenville, 57239
When was it listed? October 1990
Category. building
Township. Kosciusko township
Architectural style. Gothic Revival
National Register reference number. 90001644 - 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

8 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 8 fires within 5 miles of Zoar Norwegian Lutheran Church between 1992 and 2017, burning about 248 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
Debris and open burning	3
Fireworks	2
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2
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
29 August 2010	Fireworks	1.0 acres	Sisseton Agency	ST PARK
11 August 1992	Debris and open burning	10 acres	Waubay National Wildlife Refuge	PETERSON M
19 June 2017	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	3.5 acres	Waubay Wetland Management District	WIKE
25 May 2002	Debris and open burning	17 acres	Sisseton Agency	NPICKLAKE
11 May 2009	Debris and open burning	150 acres	South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression	not named
18 April 2004	Arson/incendiarism	3.0 acres	Sisseton Agency	OLD AGENCY
31 March 1999	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	62 acres	Sisseton Agency	ENSWIM1
16 December 2006	Fireworks	2.0 acres	Sisseton Agency	EASTMAN

Every fire recorded in Day County

Storms near this property

34 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Grenville, the town this property stands in, in 34 storm reports between 1996 and 2025: 19 hail, 12 thunderstorm wind, 3 tornado. 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	Hail	Grenville	-	A trained spotter reports hail to the size of half-dollars. Their vehicles received numerous dents, along with a broken windshield.
May 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Grenville	-	Tree branches were downed by severe winds.
May 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Grenville	-	Straight-line winds damaged the side of a farm building by removing a few panels.
July 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Grenville	-	Estimated seventy mph winds flipped a pontoon and downed a tree at Pickerel Lake.
July 2015	Tornado (EF0)	Grenville	-	A tornado touched down southeast of Grenville damaging several trees in a couple shelter belts along with some corn. Near the end of its path, a horse trailer was rolled, a barn suffered significant roof damage, and numerous branches were downed.
July 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Grenville	-	Sixty mph winds flipped a boat over along with downing many branches.
July 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Grenville	-	Eighty mph winds downed several trees.
June 2009	Hail	Grenville	-	A large amount of hail had fallen covering the roads and drifting in places.
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Grenville	-	Many large trees were downed at Pickeral Lake State Park.
June 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Grenville	-	Winds to 80 mph downed several trees and rolled and destroyed a 14 by 58 foot mobile home.
July 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Grenville	-	Winds over 70 mph brought down several large trees north of Grenville.
July 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Grenville	-	Many large tree branches were downed by the high winds.
July 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Grenville	-	High winds brought several large branches down.
July 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Grenville	-	Winds to 70 mph blew several trees down near Pickeral Lake.
July 1998	Tornado (F0)	Grenville	-	A landspout tornado touched down northeast of Grenville near Enemy Swim Lake. The tornado pulled up two fence posts, some water, and some hay was spread around as it moved southeast. Path length and width were estimated.
June 2025	Hail	Grenville	-	no account filed
July 2023	Hail	Grenville	-	no account filed
August 2017	Hail	Grenville	-	no account filed
July 2017	Hail	Grenville	-	no account filed
August 2016	Hail	Grenville	-	no account filed
September 2014	Hail	Grenville	-	no account filed
June 2013	Hail	Grenville	-	no account filed
August 2013	Hail	Grenville	-	no account filed
June 2012	Hail	Grenville	-	no account filed
April 2009	Hail	Grenville	-	no account filed
July 2008	Hail	Grenville	-	no account filed
June 2007	Hail	Grenville	-	no account filed
August 2006	Hail	Grenville	-	no account filed
August 2006	Hail	Grenville	-	no account filed
July 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Grenville	-	no account filed
July 2003	Hail	Grenville	-	no account filed
July 2001	Hail	Grenville	-	no account filed
August 1999	Hail	Grenville	-	no account filed
July 1996	Tornado (F0)	Grenville	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Day 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.

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 90001644 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Day County	All 13 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.