Commercial inspection in Faribault, MN.

By the Closer Look Inspectors team · Facts checked October 2026 against the sources listed below · About our inspectors

Owners and lenders in Faribault use a commercial property inspection to read buildings from the 1870s to the 1890s, a mill on the Cannon River and a former industrial district beside the Straight River. A 1981 state inventory form calls a block of Central Avenue a remarkably intact concentration of late nineteenth century commercial buildings.

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Commercial buildings in and around Faribault

Central Avenue’s commercial blocks of 1870 to 1898

A 1981 state inventory form describes the Faribault Historic Commercial District as a one-block area of Central Avenue between Second and Third Streets NW, a remarkably intact concentration of late nineteenth century commercial buildings constructed between 1870 and 1898, with Commercial Italianate and Queen Anne as the predominant styles. The form says a four-block business district grew up along Central Avenue, and that the district’s buildings had office facilities for area professionals on the second and third floors. The Minnesota State Historic Preservation Office later reported that the district’s boundary was substantially increased to bring in many additional properties reflecting a period of one hundred years, from the last quarter of the nineteenth century to well into the modern period.

Multi-story brick buildings of that age often have upper floors used differently from the street level, or not used at all. Storefront changes at the sidewalk, upper-floor windows and the roof edge are where age and alteration tend to show.

A woolen mill and a furniture factory

According to MNopedia, Carl Henry Klemer entered the woolen mill business in 1865. In 1892 the mill was totally lost, and the Klemers purchased property on the Cannon River and immediately built a fireproof brick building; in 1894 they replaced the wooden dam that powered the facility with one made of stone. The mill closed in 2009 and was purchased and reopened in the autumn of 2011.

On the west bank of the Straight River, the 2019 National Register nomination for the Faribault Furniture Company describes a former industrial district that held flour mills, a brewery and shoe factories, which have since closed and been replaced by new business and professional buildings. The factory came in stages: the original in 1886, a four-story addition to its south in 1906 and a four-story warehouse in 1913. In that 1906 addition, called Warehouse #1, each floor is one room with exposed brick walls, wood posts, exposed joists and wood floors, and a brewing company moved into the space in 2015, using the basement for its brewing equipment.

Two rivers and the 2010 flood

Visit Faribault says the city is built along the banks of the Straight and Cannon Rivers. In its report on the September 2010 floods, the U.S. Geological Survey prepared flood profiles and inundation maps for Faribault along those two rivers and noted that Faribault and Owatonna, on the Straight River, also had record streamflows. Ground-floor mechanical rooms, basements and loading areas are where past high water is most likely to have left a mark, which is why water history is a routine question for a building near either river.

Commercial buildings we inspect

Quick answers

Sources

• National Park Service: Minnesota Historic Properties Inventory Form, Faribault Historic Commercial District
• Minnesota State Historic Preservation Office: National Register Historic Districts
• Minnesota Historical Society MNopedia: Faribault Woolen Mill Company
• National Park Service: National Register Registration Form, Faribault Furniture Company
• Visit Faribault: Home
• U.S. Geological Survey: Floods of September 2010 in Southern Minnesota (Scientific Investigations Report 2011-5045)

Nearby towns

Commercial property inspection in Minnesota and Iowa · Home inspection in Faribault