Douglas County Courthouse

Built in 1919 (Neoclassical architecture). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

From the record

“The Douglas County Courthouse is an historic building located at 1313 Belknap Street in Superior, Wisconsin which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.”
Wikipedia article Douglas County Courthouse (Wisconsin), CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 20 National Register listings published here for Douglas County · listed in 1982 · category: Building · built in 1919, Neoclassical architecture.

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. 1313 Belknap St., Superior, 54880
When was it listed? March 1982
Category. building
Also known as. County Courthouses of Wisconsin TR
City. Superior city
When was it built? 1919
Architectural style. Neoclassical architecture
National Register reference number. 82000664 - 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

40 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 40 fires within 5 miles of Douglas County Courthouse between 1995 and 2020, burning about 63 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 6 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
Debris and open burning	9
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	9
Recreation and ceremony	6
Arson/incendiarism	6
Smoking	2
Fireworks	2
Railroad operations and maintenance	2
Equipment and vehicle use	1
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1
Other causes	1
Natural	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
18 August 2019	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
17 August 2019	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
11 August 2019	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
4 July 2017	Fireworks	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
23 July 2019	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
5 June 2017	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
26 June 2020	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named
13 June 2017	Natural	under an acre	Minnesota Department of Natural Resources	not named

Every fire recorded in Douglas County

Mines and quarries near this property

9 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 9 workings within 5 miles of Douglas County Courthouse: 4 plants, 4 producers, 1 unknown. 8 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Sulfur. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
(Facility) Superior Refinery--Murphy Oil Co	Sulfur	Plant
Albany Crushing Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Albany Crushing Plant Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Plant
Arrowhead Blacktop Co	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Mailing Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Mclean Dredge	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Unknown
Smith Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Superior Grinding Plant	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Plant
Superior Lime Plant	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Plant

Every working recorded in Douglas County

Storms near this property

51 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Superior, the town this property stands in, in 51 storm reports between 1994 and 2024: 29 thunderstorm wind, 17 hail, 4 lightning, 1 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
August 2005	Lightning	Superior	$60,000	Lightning struck a wood pile at Johnson Timber Corporation woodyard, causing the wood to catch fire. Four hundred cords of wood were destroyed.
March 2000	Lightning	Superior	$15,000	Lightning struck a home and started a fire on the second floor. No one was injured.
July 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	$5,000	Trees 50-60 feet high were blown down on a house.
June 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	$3,000	A half dozen 6-inch diameter trees were blown down on County Road A near the Nemadji Golf Course.
August 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	South Superior	$2,000	Trees and fence panels were blown down.
August 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	South Superior	$1,000	Fence panels were broken by winds and then blown into a window during the storm.
September 1999	Lightning	Superior	$500	no account filed
July 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	An 18 to 24 inch diameter silver maple tree was snapped about 8 feet up in front of the old library.
June 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	South Superior	-	A photo was received showing an uprooted tree about 2 feet in diameter on the ground in the Village of Superior near highways 105 and 35.
July 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	A gust of 62 mph was recorded by the MnDOT RWIS station MN081 just south of the main span of the Blatnik Bridge over the St. Louis River.
July 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	Multiple reports of trees down were received from around Superior.
August 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	A large tree was downed by the storm in Superior.
August 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	A large tree was uprooted near Superior City Hall. Several other reports of downed trees and branches were received from the central part of Superior as well.
August 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	The roof of a large industrial building on the far north end of Superior on the waterfront was severely damaged and partially blown off.
September 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	A 12 inch diameter 40 foot tall pine tree was blown down onto a deck.
June 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	A large tree was knocked down and damaged a house and fence.
July 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	There was a large tree down along Belknap Street.
July 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	Two docks on Barker Island were damaged.
June 2015	Hail	Superior	-	The hail fell in the Billings Park neighborhood of Superior, WI.
August 2012	Tornado (EF0)	Superior	-	A weak waterspout made landfall as a brief tornado at Bakers Island. There was no damage.
May 2009	Hail	Superior	-	The hail fell near the Mariner Mall.
August 2008	Hail	Superior	-	The hail was reported near the mouth of the Nemadji River.
June 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	Large trees were blown down and windows of a house were shattered by strong thunderstorm winds.
September 2007	Hail	Superior	-	Penny sized hail.
May 2007	Hail	Superior	-	The hail fell at the UW Superior campus.
June 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	Power was lost when trees fell on power lines.
August 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	Trees were blown down on Wisconsin Point.
July 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	Trees were blown down in the Billings Park area.
August 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	Strong winds ripped the roof off a house trailer.
August 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	Trees from 8 to 10 inches in diameter were blown down. Wind speed is estimated.
July 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	Many trees were blown down.
July 1994	Hail	Superior	-	A powerful tornado cut a short but devasting path in northern Manitowoc County from two and one-half miles northwest of Maribel to near Cooperstown. A second smaller tornado also developed two miles southwest of Cooperstown and carved out a minor damage path leveling a shed and tossing a grain box about 300 yards. Much of the $2.1 million damage inflicted by the first tornado included 26 homes, $906,000; 19 vehicles and one mobile home, $300,000; household contents, $245,000; three barns, $160,000; Wisconsin Public Service property, $50,000; crops, $304,800; and four heifers and two sheep killed, $3,600. One man was injured when he was struck by a 55 gallon drum, and a woman suffered minor injuries when pieces of a stone foundation fell on her. A severe thunderstorm dropped one inch diameter hail in Superior (Douglas County).
July 2023	Hail	Superior	-	no account filed
June 2021	Hail	Superior	-	no account filed
July 2021	Hail	Superior	-	no account filed
May 2012	Hail	Superior	-	no account filed
September 2011	Hail	Superior	-	no account filed
June 2010	Hail	Superior	-	no account filed
August 2008	Hail	Superior	-	no account filed
July 2006	Hail	Superior	-	no account filed
April 2004	Hail	Superior	-	no account filed
August 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	no account filed
August 2002	Hail	Superior	-	no account filed
July 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	no account filed
July 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	no account filed
August 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	no account filed
July 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	no account filed
June 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	no account filed
August 1998	Hail	Superior	-	no account filed
August 1996	Lightning	Superior	-	no account filed
July 1996	Thunderstorm Wind	Superior	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Douglas 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

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.

Property	Distance	Listed
New Jersey Building	0.3 miles	1983
New York Block	0.3 miles	1985
Minnesota Block-Board of Trade Bldg.	0.3 miles	1985
Washington Block	0.3 miles	1985
Wemyss Building	0.4 miles	1985
Empire Block	0.4 miles	1985

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 82000664 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Douglas County	All 20 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.