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Thief River Falls, MN
Thief River Falls, sometimes referred to as Thief River or abbreviated as TRF, is a city in, and the county seat of, Pennington County in the northwest portion of the U.S. state of Minnesota. The population was 8,749 at the 2020 census.
The City of Thief River Falls is located in Northwestern Minnesota in Pennington County, approximately 70 miles south of the Canadian border, where the Thief River flows into the Red Lake River. Not only does Thief River Falls serve as a regional center for its agricultural base, it has also developed and retained a commercial and industrial base that includes numerous manufacturing and distribution center jobs, while being surrounded by rivers, wildlife refuges and forests. “Falls” was added to the name of the new city in 1896 because a series of rapids in the river had been converted to a waterfall by the construction of the dam. Until 1904, an Ojibwe village of 40 families was located where the Thief and Red Lake Rivers meet.
Thief River Falls marked the limit of navigation on the Red Lake River. The eponymous town site was established in 1887 and later incorporated as a city in 1896. Thief River Falls first developed as a lumber-milling town. It is located in a major agriculture area because of the rich soil left by ancient Glacial Lake Agassiz. The Great Northern and the Soo Line railroads brought prosperity when Thief River Falls became a center for shipping wheat.
Today, the city continues its entrepreneurial spirit, preserving and respecting the past, yet growing and moving toward the future, especially in the manufacturing and distribution industries, both nationally and internationally.
The town is the home of snowmobile manufacturer Arctic Cat. South of Thief River Falls is one of the area's few Native American casinos, 7 Clans Casino, which also contains a hotel and indoor water park.
