Litchfield

History

Immigration to the county was slow until the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba Railroad, later called the St. Paul and Pacific and then the Great Northern, started coming through the area in 1869. The first train to arrive was a construction train on August 13, 1869. The town site was laid out in 1869, with agriculture and agriculture-related industries making up a large base of the economy. The town's first post office opened in a home on September 20, 1869. It later moved to the northwest corner of Sibley Avenue and Second Street, to a clothing store owned by the town's first official postmaster. The settlers living in the area named their new community "Ness" on April 5, 1858, after the home of many of the first settlers: the parish of Næs in the traditional region of Hallingdal, Norway. Litchfield got its name from a man named Electus Bachus Darwin Litchfield. He was a contractor, an investor, and a stockholder in the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, which originally went from St. Paul to St. Cloud and was built from 1862 to 1864. Later, his investments provided the means for building a more southern line through Meeker County to Breckenridge. The village of Litchfield was originally called several different names, including "Round Lake", "Ripley", and finally "Ness". Litchfield was originally a portion of a congressional township named Round Lake, but most people called it Ripley after Ripley Lake one mile from its center. The people of Ness were permitted to vote on the actual chartered village name of their township. Electus Litchfield donated grants of $2,000 each to various religious sects in town to build churches, the Episcopal and Presbyterian churches being two of them. The Presbyterian Church, Litchfield's first church, was built in 1870. The…

Geography

Litchfield is in the center of Meeker County. U.S. Highway 12 and Minnesota State Highways 22 and 24 are three of the main routes in the city. US 12 leads east to Cokato and west to Willmar; MN 22 leads north to Richmond and south-southeast to Hutchinson, and MN 24 leads north to Kimball. Minneapolis is to the east via US 12. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city of Litchfield has a total area of , of which are land and , or 17.92%, are water. |source 2 = National Weather Service }}

Race & ethnicity