Vale Bridge

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

From the record

“The Vale Bridge near Vale, South Dakota brings a local road over the Belle Fourche River. Built in 1906, It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.”
Wikipedia article Vale Bridge, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 39 National Register listings published here for Butte County · listed in 1999 · 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. Local Rd. over Belle Fourche River, Vale, 57788
When was it listed? August 1999
Category. structure
Also known as. Historic Bridges in South Dakota MPS; Historic Bridges in South Dakota MPS
Unorganized territory. East Butte
National Register reference number. 99000954 - 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

69 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 69 fires within 5 miles of Vale Bridge between 1998 and 2020, burning about 3,130 acres in total. 8 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	45
Equipment and vehicle use	9
Natural	8
Debris and open burning	6
Misuse of fire by a minor	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
6 September 2011	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression	FOLLETTE
2 September 2010	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression	GUY
8 August 2005	Natural	under an acre	South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression	not named
6 August 2012	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	20 acres	South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression	BIG HORN RD.
6 August 2005	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	5.0 acres	South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression	not named
5 August 2012	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	200 acres	South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression	BEAR BUTTE FARMS 2
3 August 2013	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Meade	NO FIRE
3 August 2011	Natural	under an acre	South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression	NONE

Every fire recorded in Butte County

Mines and quarries near this property

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Vale Bridge: 1 occurrence, 1 past producer. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Gold, 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.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Barber Pit No 1	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
	Deadwood Mill	Gold	Occurrence

Every working recorded in Butte County

Storms near this property

31 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Vale, the town this property stands in, in 31 storm reports between 1996 and 2025: 19 hail, 11 thunderstorm wind, 1 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
May 2013	Hail	Vale	$50,000	no account filed
July 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Vale	$5,000	Doors torn off a barn. Two horses were killed and another injured.
June 2025	Hail	Vale	-	Spotter reported hail size, measured.
June 2025	Hail	Vale	-	Spotter reported hail size, measured.
June 2025	Hail	Vale	-	Public report.
June 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Vale	-	Public estimated wind gust report.
July 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Vale	-	Strong wind gusts blew down a fence.
June 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Vale	-	Wind gusts were estimated at 60 mph.
August 2011	Hail	Vale	-	Wind gusts to 40 mph also accompanied the storm.
May 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Vale	-	Wind gusts were estimated at 60 mph.
May 2008	Flood	Vale	-	Heavy rain caused flooding in Nisland, Vale, and Belle Fourche. Minor flooding was observed along the Belle Fourche River around Nisland and Vale, Willow Creek and Dry Creek near Newell, Stinking Water Creek, and Maloney Creek.
August 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Vale	-	The doors were blown off a shed.
May 2024	Hail	Vale	-	no account filed
May 2024	Hail	Vale	-	no account filed
May 2023	Hail	Vale	-	no account filed
August 2022	Hail	Vale	-	no account filed
June 2022	Hail	Vale	-	no account filed
July 2017	Hail	Vale	-	no account filed
June 2015	Hail	Vale	-	no account filed
July 2015	Hail	Vale	-	no account filed
May 2013	Hail	Vale	-	no account filed
August 2011	Hail	Vale	-	no account filed
August 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Vale	-	no account filed
July 2009	Thunderstorm Wind	Vale	-	no account filed
June 2008	Hail	Vale	-	no account filed
June 2008	Hail	Vale	-	no account filed
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Vale	-	no account filed
August 2007	Hail	Vale	-	no account filed
June 2003	Hail	Vale	-	no account filed
July 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Vale	-	no account filed
July 1996	Thunderstorm Wind	Vale	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Butte 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

4 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.

Property	Distance	Listed
Vale School	0.8 miles	1984
William G. Kenaston House	6.2 miles	1984
Newell Depot Bridge	7.2 miles	1999
Belle Fourche Experiment Farm	7.6 miles	1976

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 99000954 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Butte County	All 39 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.
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.