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Two Harbors, Minnesota

11 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1992. It stands in Two Harbors City. It lies in ZIP code area 55616. It stands on Skunk Creek. The Survey maps it on the Two Harbors quadrangle. 3,633 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 669 feet above sea level.

Two Harbors within Lake County

On record in Two Harbors

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 9 records

Population over time

2 figures

Two Harbors fell from 3,745 to 3,633 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
20103,745
20203,633-112 (-3%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

8 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.

Fires near this place

144 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 144 fires within 5 miles of Two Harbors between 1992 and 2020, burning about 65 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 10 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
Railroad operations and maintenance57
Missing data/not specified/undetermined22
Debris and open burning20
Equipment and vehicle use10
Arson/incendiarism10
Smoking8
Recreation and ceremony7
Misuse of fire by a minor6
Power generation/transmission/distribution3
Natural1

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
9 September 2011Railroad operations and maintenanceunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
8 September 1997Debris and open burningunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
4 September 1993Railroad operations and maintenanceunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
3 September 1998Debris and open burningunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
24 September 2012Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
19 September 2000Debris and open burning1.5 acresMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
10 September 2011Railroad operations and maintenanceunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
6 August 2007Railroad operations and maintenanceunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Lake County

Storms near this place

13 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Two Harbors in 13 storm reports between 1995 and 2025: 7 hail, 5 thunderstorm wind, 1 flash flood. 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 2021Thunderstorm WindTwo Harbors$5,000The top part of a healthy pine tree was knocked over by the wind and punctured a garage roof.
August 2001Thunderstorm WindTwo Harbors-Trees up to 10 inches in diameter were blown down.
July 1995Thunderstorm WindTwo Harbors-Several trees were blown down. For the second morning in a row, a large complex of severe thunderstorms formed over the western Dakotas in the evening and moved into northeast Minnesota early the following morning. Again, this was primarily a wind event, with no reports of large hail or tornadoes. One man was killed when lightning struck the tree he was standing under. Thunderstorm wind gusts as high as 70 kts (80 mph) were observed as the squall line moved through the region. Many trees and power lines were blown down, causing extensive and widespread power and cable TV outages. Wind damage to boats, vehicles, buildings, and antennas also occurred, either directly or by falling trees. The hardest hit area extended from around Brainarrowrowd in Crow Wing County to near Grand Rapids in Itasca County, then northeast across the Iron Range of central St. Louis County, including the cities of Hibbing, Virginia, and Aurora. In some communities, trucks with plows were needed to clear roads made impassable by fallen trees. Thousands of electric customers were without power for at least 24 hours following the storm. The general manager for the Hibbing Public Utilities said it was the worst windstorm in at least 10 years. Other damage in Hibbing included construction signs and portable toilets that were tipped over. A fabric storage building was lifted by the wind, and an awning was ripped off the Pella Windows store. Trees touching power lines caused a few small fires. Other nearby communities suffering large numbers of downed trees and power outages were Kelly Lake, Chisholm, Nashwauk, Keewatin, and Leetonia. In Grand Rapids, power to half the city was out for hours and hundreds of power lines were down. Highway 169 south of the city was completely blocked by fallen trees. In Virginia, the Boyer True Value Hardware and Lumber store lost the roof from one of its buildings.
March 2025HailTwo Harbors-no account filed
May 2022HailTwo Harbors-no account filed
April 2004HailTwo Harbors-no account filed
July 2001HailTwo Harbors-no account filed
July 2000HailTwo Harbors-no account filed
July 2000HailTwo Harbors-no account filed
July 2000HailTwo Harbors-no account filed
July 1999Thunderstorm WindTwo Harbors-no account filed
July 1999Thunderstorm WindTwo Harbors-no account filed
June 1997Flash FloodTwo Harbors-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Lake 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
Waldo3.3 miles11
Larsmont5.0 miles5
Stewart5.9 miles11
Silver Creek7.2 miles11
York7.4 miles9
Knife River7.7 miles10
Alger8.7 miles9
Castle Danger11.2 miles11

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 Two HarborsAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q993483The 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 658799. 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.