BlockFrom the record
One of 36 National Register listings published here for Dodge County · listed in 2020 · category: Building.
Sources: the National Register database, National Park Service
Van Brunt Memorial School
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2020.
The listing
- What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
- Address. 611 Mill St., Horicon, 53032
- When was it listed? February 2020
- Category. building
- City. Horicon city
- National Register reference number. 100004987 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.
What happened here
An account from the chapter on Horicon city. The inset identifies its exact source book and publication year.
Disasters On Horicon Lake
While Horicon Lake was a navigable body of water, two appalling calamities occurred upon it, recollections of which will ever remain fresh in the minds of the people of Dodge County. The firsi of these took place about four or five miles from the village of Horicon in July, 1857, a scow, containing a crew of seventeen men engaged in rafting logs from Chester bridge, being struck by lightning during a terrible hurricane.
The ground it stands on
52,221 wordsThe chapter on Horicon City in The History of Dodge County, Wisconsin, Containing ... Its Early Settlement, Growth ... an Extensive and Minute Sketch of Its Cities ... War Record, Biographical Sketches, published 1880 names Horicon. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.
No more appropriate place could be selected within this work for a brief recital of an ugly transaction, still fresh in the minds of every one in Dodge County. At a special meetmg of the Board of Supervisors held May, 8, 1878 - eight months after the destructioji of the County Building by fire, and three days after the burning of the Treasurer's temporary office, south of the old Court House - called "for the transaction of business of a pressing nature," the following resolution was submitted by the Hon. Sat. Clark, of Horicon, and adopted :
Passage source: The History of Dodge County, Wisconsin, Containing ... Its Early Settlement, Growth ... an Extensive and Minute Sketch of Its Cities ... War Record, Biographical Sketches, published 1880.
The first fair of the Society was held at Juneau, probably the same year of its organization, although the record left shows that it was " on Thursday of last year." Among those receiving premiums were G. C. Gunn, Dr. Atwood, Joel Rich, David Barber, S. H. Coleman, George R. Clapp, F. H. Roper and S. J. Glover, for different kinds of stock ; J. C. Brown for poultry and boots ; A. Olson, for buggy ; S. Sti'eeter, for best thrashing machine ; Paul Juneau, C. Billinghurst, G. C. Gunn, N. E. Allen, Herman Grube and S. W. Lyman, for vegetables ; and in the ladies' department, Mrs. George R. Clapp, Mrs. Atwater, Mrs. W. H. Lander, Mrs. S. H. Allen, Mrs. J. C. Brown, and others, received premiums for specimens of their handiwork. On miscellaneous articles, a premium of $1 was awarded to " Rich & Grout, Horicon, for one bar of wrought iron, manufactured this forenoon from the Iron Ridge ore in this county, which is the first of the kind ever made in the county, and the Committee consider it equal to the best Swedes."
Passage source: The History of Dodge County, Wisconsin, Containing ... Its Early Settlement, Growth ... an Extensive and Minute Sketch of Its Cities ... War Record, Biographical Sketches, published 1880.
Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.
Read the whole chapter on Horicon City - 52,221 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.
Fires near this property
9 since 1994Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 9 fires within 5 miles of Van Brunt Memorial School between 1994 and 2012, burning about 667 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 3 were 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 |
|---|---|
| Arson/incendiarism | 3 |
| Debris and open burning | 2 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2 |
| Natural | 1 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 September 2005 | Debris and open burning | 280 acres | Horicon National Wildlife Refuge | DNR CLARK'S DITCH |
| 20 May 1994 | Arson/incendiarism | 2.0 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 1 May 1996 | Arson/incendiarism | 1.2 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 9 April 2012 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 4.5 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 23 April 1994 | Debris and open burning | 2.5 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 22 April 1994 | Equipment and vehicle use | 4.0 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 18 April 2002 | Natural | 360 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 12 April 2000 | Arson/incendiarism | 3.0 acres | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources | not named |
Mines and quarries near this property
10 of 11 shownRegional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 11 workings within 5 miles of Van Brunt Memorial School: 8 past producers, 2 producers, 1 unknown. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Iron, Iron, Copper, Lead, Calcium. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mayville Mine | Iron, Copper, Lead | Past Producer | 1892, 1928 | |
| Mayville White Lime Quarry | Calcium | Producer | ||
| Iron Ridge Mine | Iron | Past Producer | 1849, 1914 | |
| Iron Ridge Mine | Iron | Past Producer | 1849 | |
| Mayville Mine | Iron | Past Producer | 1892 | |
| Bartosch Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Dodge County Hwy. Dept. | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Unknown | ||
| Horicon Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Producer | ||
| Kranich Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Linck-Henes Construction Co., Inc. | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer |
Storms near this property
21 since 1994Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Horicon, the town this property stands in, in 21 storm reports between 1994 and 2026: 7 hail, 7 thunderstorm wind, 3 tornado, 2 funnel cloud. 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 2025 | Tornado (EF2) | Horicon | $3,400,000 | Tornado began southwest of Mayville just west of Highway 28 which was also captured on video as a potential multi-vortex tornado. Some of the more intense damage occurred shortly after the tornado developed and crossed County Rd TW on into southwest Mayville in an industrial area. A farmhouse on Cty RW lost a portion of its roof and some farm sheds. The tornado then moved through the industrial area in southwest Mayville. The Mayville Engineering Company was hit on its northwest corner. The winds from the tornado breached a large garage door on the west side which then pushed the large north end wall down. The tornado then went through the Gleason Reel Corporation and destroyed the southern portion of the building. It then went through a neighborhood near the St. John/Graceland cemetary before crossing Main St/Rock River. The tornado then went through the east side of Mayville near the Mayville Golf Course. It then continued to the northeast through mainly rural areas before ending NW of Theresa. |
| June 2000 | Tornado (F2) | Horicon | $1,110,000 | no account filed |
| June 1996 | Thunderstorm Wind | Horicon | $20,000 | no account filed |
| October 2005 | Thunderstorm Wind | Horicon | $10,000 | no account filed |
| June 2019 | Thunderstorm Wind | Horicon | $3,000 | Scattered branches and trees down in the Horicon area. |
| June 2000 | Hail | Horicon | $3,000 | no account filed |
| June 2014 | Thunderstorm Wind | Horicon | $1,000 | Many trees down along Raasch Hill Road. Six inch diameter branches hanging in the power lines. |
| March 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Horicon | - | Large tree down in Horicon. |
| June 2014 | Heavy Rain | Horicon | - | A shallow layer of mud flowing across the road due to an estimated one inch of rain in 20 minutes and a plugged culvert. |
| August 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Horicon | - | County sheriff deputies reported trees were blown down by the strong thunderstorm gusts. |
| July 2003 | Tornado (F0) | Horicon | - | A brief, weak tornado spun up on the edge of the Horicon Marsh, northwest of the city of Horicon, resulting in only minor vegetative damage. |
| September 1994 | Hail | Horicon | - | Severe thunderstorms deposited hail up to the size of golf balls over parts of Dodge County. About 100 vehicles received hail damage in Beaver Dam, nearly 50 of them on one auto dealer's lot. |
| April 2026 | Hail | Horicon | - | no account filed |
| April 2018 | Hail | Horicon | - | no account filed |
| February 2017 | Hail | Horicon | - | no account filed |
| June 2006 | Funnel Cloud | Horicon | - | no account filed |
| August 2006 | Hail | Horicon | - | no account filed |
| June 2005 | Thunderstorm Wind | Horicon | - | no account filed |
| July 2005 | Funnel Cloud | Horicon | - | no account filed |
| April 2002 | Lightning | Horicon | - | no account filed |
| March 2000 | Hail | Horicon | - | no account filed |
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
6 within 8 milesOther 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Horicon State Bank | 0.2 miles | 2018 |
 | Daniel C. Van Brunt House | 0.4 miles | 1981 |
 | Willard Greenfield Farmstead | 3.9 miles | 1992 |
 | Main Street Historic District | 5.2 miles | 1995 |
 | Beaumont Hotel | 5.3 miles | 1988 |
 | White Limestone School | 5.3 miles | 1976 |
Sources for this property
| National Archives record | The nomination case file for reference 100004987 in Record Group 79. |
| Dodge County | All 36 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.