List of evaluated roadside properties
Graceville Historical Marker
SHPO number: BS-GRA-017
The Graceville Historical Marker is part of a 5.5-acre wayside along Trunk Highway 28 on the western city limits of Graceville, in Big Stone County. The marker, which replaced an earlier marker installed through a partnership between the Minnesota Highway Department and the Minnesota Historical Society, commemorates the 1878 founding of Graceville, named after Bishop Thomas L. Grace. The Graceville Historical Marker was built between 1940 and 1941 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.
Significant historic elements and status
Evaluated under the Multiple Property Documentation Form entitled “Federal Relief Construction in Minnesota, 1933-1941,” the Graceville Historical Marker is significant as a well-preserved example of the first generation of roadside facilities built by the Roadside Development Division of the Minnesota Department of Highways and as one of the Minnesota facilities built in cooperation with federal relief agencies. The wayside rest was built in conjunction with the realignment and beautification of Trunk Highway 28 and nearby Trunk Highway 75. Labor was supplied by the Works Projects Administration, which provided essential work and job training during the Great Depression and until the program was terminated in 1942.
The Graceville Historical Marker is also significant as a well-preserved example of a pull-off style roadside parking area and as a good example of the National Park Service Rustic Style. The site and the marker were designed by A.R. Nichols, a consulting landscape architect for the Minnesota Highway Department. The symmetrical site design includes a semi-circular drive, which provided safe, easy access to and from the highway. In the original design, vegetation included prairie grass, trees (poplars, elm, honeysuckle, and spruce), and shrubs intended to frame the marker and provide important shade for travelers. The marker, which is prominently placed and approximately 26-feet in length, has a rectangular, raised terrace surrounded on three sides by low stone walls and square piers. The access drive remains gravel, which is unusual as most historic markers have been paved with other materials since their construction. The terrace is paved with granite flagstone and features three granite steps. Along the back wall of the terrace is a rectangular, vertical masonry wall with symmetrical lower stepping walls, which encircle the plaza, with an inset bronze plaque. Unlike many more ruggedly constructed Rustic Style structures, the marker exhibits A.R. Nichol’s formal interpretation of the style.
Features that contribute to and help convey the significance of the Graceville Historical Marker include: the marker itself in the National Park Service Rustic Style, the symmetrical site design providing easy access to and from the highway, and the placement and types of vegetation.
Accessible features on the site
- None