Fergus Falls, Minnesota

Fergus Falls is a city located in Otter Tail County, Minnesota. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 13,471. It is the county seat of Otter Tail County⁶.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 36.5 km² (14.1 mi²). 33.8 km² (13.1 mi²) of it is land and 2.7 km² (1.0 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 7.44% water.

Demographics

As of the census² of 2000, there are 13,471 people, 5,633 households, and 3,306 families residing in the city. The population density is 398.3/km² (1,031.5/mi²). There are 5,909 housing units at an average density of 174.7/km² (452.5/mi²). The racial makeup of the city is 97.02% White, 0.62% African American, 0.76% Native American, 0.57% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 0.20% from other races, and 0.82% from two or more races. 0.91% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There are 5,633 households out of which 28.1% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 47.2% are married couples living together, 9.0% have a female householder with no husband present, and 41.3% are non-families. 35.5% of all households are made up of individuals and 18.0% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.25 and the average family size is 2.94.

In the city the population is spread out with 23.0% under the age of 18, 10.0% from 18 to 24, 24.5% from 25 to 44, 20.3% from 45 to 64, and 22.1% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 40 years. For every 100 females there are 89.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 85.6 males.

The median income for a household in the city is $31,454, and the median income for a family is $44,280. Males have a median income of $32,051 versus $20,841 for females. The per capita income for the city is $18,929. 10.8% of the population and 7.0% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 11.4% of those under the age of 18 and 10.0% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.

Background

Fergus Falls was incorporated in the late 1870s and named for a Scottish trapper who was the first European to find the waterfall which gave the city its name. It is situated along the dividing line between the former great deciduous forest of the Northwest Territories to the East, and the great plains to the West, in a region of gentle hills, where the recent geological history is dominated by the recession of the glaciers from the last great Ice Age, with numerous lakes and small rivers about.

The dams built on the Otter Tail River beginning in the 1880s were powerful economic forces, which shaped the development of culture and class structure in the area. Returning soldiers from the Civil War, primarily of British extraction, rapidly settled the region for farming (wheat and corn in the Western plains and dairy and hogs in the Eastern hills and forests), filling the vacuum created by the brutal repression of the Sioux uprising. The importance of the Civil War experience to these early settlers is highlighted by the naming of the streets of Fergus Falls: The intersecting principal thoroughfares are Lincoln Avenue and Union Avenue. The oldest parts of the town have streets with names such as Sherman, Sheridan, and Mount Vernon. The early English wave of settlement claimed control of the falls along the Otter Tail River, and established the first Epsicopalian and Presbyterian churches.

Almost immediately as the foundational structure of the town was laid, an influx of Norwegian immigrants came, by way of the Scandinavian slums of Chicago and Minneapolis, riding the Great Northern Railway. Primarily dairy farmers, they established numerous Lutheran churches in the area. The Lutheran Bretheren established an academy in Fergus Falls, which today operates a private high school, theological seminary, and mission society. The pietistic, low-church Lutheran Bretheren constituted one cultural center of the Nowegian-German community, while the high-church First Lutheran constituted a separate center, to which a more upwardly-mobile class of parishoner was attracted.

A strong economic division between the earlier English and Scottish war veterans who retained control of the principal businesses of the city center, the banks, and the increasingly important Ottertail Power Company persisted for decades until several generations of ethnic intermarriage and continuing inward and outward migration had largely erased the initially strong divisions of class and power along ethnic lines. The small black, largely Baptist, community which clustered in the Southeast of the city gradually dwindled. Two major cyclone disasters hit Fergus Falls during the early 20th century, the second being the greater. Interestingly, the only Church edifice left standing after the great cyclone was the predominantly black Baptist church.

After the Interstate Defense Highway System built I-94 along the western edge of Fergus Falls in the late 1950s, population mobility increased dramatically, and high school graduates increasingly left the town to attend colleges in Morris, Fargo-Moorhead, or the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. As farming declined as an occupation and lifestyle, with large-scale commercial farming gradually replacing the family farm system during the second half of the 20th century, the city increasingly appeared destined to become a retirement and nursing community, until in-migration of younger families was enabled by the Internet (introduced locally by Park Region Telephone Company in 1994), which allowed telecommuting and e-business. The bucolic environment, with abundant sporting opportunities which had long attracted summer vacationers to the area, combined with the relatively low cost of real estate and cost of living attracted people wishing to raise their children away from the comparatively commercialized and criminalized environments of larger cities.