Florence County Courthouse and Jail

Built in 1889 (Romanesque Revival architecture). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

From the record

“The Florence County Courthouse and Jail, built in 1889, is an historic complex of governmental buildings located at 501 Lake Street in Florence, Wisconsin. Clancy of Antigo in the Romanesque style, it was built of brick with local sandstone and blue limestone trim and terra cotta roofs.”
Wikipedia article Florence County Courthouse and Jail, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 5 National Register listings published here for Florence County · listed in 1985 · category: Building · built in 1889, Romanesque Revival 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 2 buildingss as contributing to the listing.
Address. 501 Lake St., Florence, 54121
When was it listed? December 1985
Category. building
Also known as. County Courthouses of Wisconsin TR
Town. Florence town
When was it built? 1889
Architectural style. Romanesque Revival architecture
National Register reference number. 85003029 - 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

94 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 94 fires within 5 miles of Florence County Courthouse and Jail between 1992 and 2020, burning about 90 acres in total. 3 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
Debris and open burning	36
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	20
Equipment and vehicle use	10
Fireworks	6
Power generation/transmission/distribution	5
Misuse of fire by a minor	5
Recreation and ceremony	5
Natural	3
Smoking	2
Other causes	2

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
8 September 2009	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	BUTTONS AND BOWS
4 September 2009	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	LIFT STATION
2 August 2005	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
9 July 2007	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
5 July 2003	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
3 July 2013	Power generation/transmission/distribution	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	DITCH ON N
3 July 2009	Fireworks	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	FIRE CRACKER
27 July 2003	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named

Every fire recorded in Florence County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 23 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 23 workings within 5 miles of Florence County Courthouse and Jail: 10 past producers, 6 occurrences, 5 producers, 1 prospect. 5 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Iron. 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	Recorded
Commonwealth Group	Iron	Past Producer	1880, 1916
Commonwealth Group	Iron	Past Producer	1880
Ernst Mine	Iron	Past Producer	1849, 1914, 1929
Ernst Mine	Iron	Past Producer	1912, 1914
Florence Mine	Iron	Past Producer	1849, 1880, 1931
Florence Mine	Iron	Past Producer	1880
Larson Exploration	Iron	Prospect
Larson Exploration Prospect	Iron	Occurrence	1849, 1948
Blooms Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Commonwealth Gravel Deposit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Occurrence

Every working recorded in Florence County

Storms near this property

13 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Florence, the town this property stands in, in 13 storm reports between 1995 and 2021: 7 thunderstorm wind, 5 hail, 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 1999	Flash Flood	Florence	$1,580,000	no account filed
April 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Florence	$120,000	no account filed
August 1996	Thunderstorm Wind	Florence	$5,000	no account filed
July 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Florence	$1,500	no account filed
June 2021	Hail	Florence	-	Penny size hail fell in Florence.
June 2011	Hail	Florence	-	A thunderstorm produced penny size hail that covered the ground in Florence.
July 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Florence	-	Thunderstorm winds downed trees on State Highway 70 and County Road N.
June 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Florence	-	Trees down at State Highway 70.
August 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Florence	-	Thunderstorm winds downed several trees near Florence.
April 2004	Hail	Florence	-	no account filed
September 2002	Hail	Florence	-	no account filed
December 2001	Hail	Florence	-	no account filed
July 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Florence	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Florence 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

3 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
David M. and Lottie Fulmer House	0.2 miles	2014
Robert B. and Estelle J. Webb House	0.2 miles	2014
Florence Town Hall	0.2 miles	2014

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 85003029 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Florence County	All 5 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.