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Clearwater, Minnesota

11 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1951 and the latest in 1991. It stands in Clearwater City. It lies in ZIP code area 55320. The Survey maps it on the Clearwater quadrangle. 1,922 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 965 feet above sea level.

Clearwater within Wright County

On record in Clearwater

Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.

On the National Register 3 records

Population over time

2 figures

Clearwater grew from 1,735 to 1,922 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

YearPeople Change
20101,735
20201,922+187 (+11%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

7 surveys from 11 printed sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

In the county-history sources

3,362 words on this township

History of Wright County, Minnesota Volume II, published 1915 names this settlement in its chapter on Clearwater City. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

Clearwater is the most northern of the political divisions of Wright county. It embraces all that part of Congressional township 122, range 27, that lies east of the Clearwater river; a small portion of seetions 34 and 35, in township 123, range 27, in the triangle formed by the juncture of the Clearwater and Mississippi rivers, and sections 7, 17 and 18 and fractional sections 5, 6 and 8, in township 122, range 26.

Passage source: History of Wright County, Minnesota Volume II, published 1915.

The surface is rolling, and in the northern part was originally principally prairie, bordered by a narrow belt of timber skirting the river, while south it merged into brushland, beyond which was a heavy timber land. Numerous fine lakes are found throughout the town, and two of more considerable size make slight encroachments from the town of Corinna on the south. Some good natural meadow land is found in the southern portion and along the Mississippi in the northern part. The soil in the prairie portion is a dark sandy loam with clay subsoil, and produces excellent crops; in the portion originally timbered it is clay and dark loam and is unsurpassed for fertility. For many years the cultivated area of this town was proportionately greater than in any other town in the county, but with the development of modern improvements in other localities in the county, Clearwater lost this distinction.

Passage source: History of Wright County, Minnesota Volume II, published 1915.

Selah Markham was the first permanent settler in Clearwater. He was born in New York, and came here from Illinois in the fall of 1854 and took a claim in section 7, township 122, range 26. He built a cabin and started a farm, the first in the township. About the same time, Alonzo T. Boynton tock a claim in sections 1, 2. 11 and 12. He also built a cabin and started a farm. He also was a native of New York state and came here from Illinois. John Oakes spent a part of the winter with Markham. Asa White, who had traded at Clear Lake, aeross the Mississippi river, as early as 1847, possibly selected a claim here the same winter.

Passage source: History of Wright County, Minnesota Volume II, published 1915.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Clearwater City - it names this place 17 more 17 times.

Fires near this place

54 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 54 fires within 5 miles of Clearwater between 1992 and 2020, burning about 496 acres in total. None started naturally. 6 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause Fires
Debris and open burning30
Railroad operations and maintenance10
Arson/incendiarism6
Equipment and vehicle use3
Missing data/not specified/undetermined3
Recreation and ceremony1
Smoking1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
30 September 2000Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
24 September 1993Equipment and vehicle use3.0 acresMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
27 August 2003Smokingunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
24 August 2000Debris and open burning1.5 acresMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
13 August 1996Railroad operations and maintenance1.5 acresMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
21 June 2008Railroad operations and maintenanceunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
21 June 2008Railroad operations and maintenanceunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
2 June 1994Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Wright County

Storms near this place

19 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Clearwater in 19 storm reports between 1997 and 2025: 11 hail, 7 thunderstorm wind, 1 tornado. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
July 2010Tornado (EF0)Clearwater$100,000Hundreds of trees were snapped or uprooted, roofs removed from sheds, and several outbuildings destroyed. A house sustained minor damage, with the roof partially removed above a porch, and some shingles and siding removed.
April 2025HailClearwater-Photo provided via social media.
July 2023HailClearwater-Mostly dime size hail with some quarter size hail mixed in. Photo relayed through social media.
June 2015HailClearwater-There were several reports of penny to nickel size hail from south of Clearwater, east to Interstate 94. The largest hail stone was quarter size, south of Clearwater.
May 2012Thunderstorm WindClearwater-A Minnesota Department of Transportation wind sensor measured a wind gust of 59 knots.
June 2010Thunderstorm WindClearwater-This was a measured wind gust at a Minnesota Department of Transportation Weather Station.
June 2010Thunderstorm WindClearwater-Multiple trees were blown down near Clearwater, Minnesota.
August 2007HailClearwater-Estimated winds of 40-50 mph.
June 2005Thunderstorm WindClearwater-The top half of a chicken barn was blown off along 17th Avenue in Linden Township.
July 2005Thunderstorm WindClearwater-A tree was downed across Highway 24.
July 1997Thunderstorm WindClearwater-Windows blown in at apartment building. Trees down.
July 2024HailClearwater-no account filed
May 2022Thunderstorm WindClearwater-no account filed
August 2008HailClearwater-no account filed
August 2008HailClearwater-no account filed
July 2007HailClearwater-no account filed
May 2006HailClearwater-no account filed
August 2006HailClearwater-no account filed
April 2002HailClearwater-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Wright County

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
Clearwater Estates0.7 miles11
Hasty5.2 miles15
Enfield7.6 miles15
Silver Creek8.1 miles15
Annandale11.5 miles10
South Haven12.3 miles10
Maple Lake13.4 miles10
Monticello15.6 miles16

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikipedia article on ClearwaterAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1009967The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 641312. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.