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Walnut Grove, Minnesota

9 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1953 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Walnut Grove City. It lies in ZIP code area 56180. The Survey maps it on the Walnut Grove quadrangle. 751 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,217 feet above sea level.

Walnut Grove within Redwood County

On record in Walnut Grove

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 1 record

Population over time

2 figures

Walnut Grove fell from 871 to 751 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
2010871
2020751-120 (-14%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 surveys from 9 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

3,964 words on this township

The History of Redwood County, Minnesota, published 1916 names this settlement in its chapter on Walnut Grove City. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

The vicinity of Walnut Grove has attracted attention since the earliest days by reason of its seventy acres of heavy black walnut. No explanation has ever been made of the presence of these great trees in a region where other trees grew but sparsely, and in a spot far removed from any other groves of the same

Passage source: The History of Redwood County, Minnesota, published 1916.

An early settler in North Hero was Thomas Allen. Allen then a young man of twenty -five years, came to this locality, and after looking about, filed on the southwest quarter of section 20. He then returned to his home and spent the winter. In the spring of 1872 he came back, driving an ox team, and reaching here ahead of the railroad which was put through that year. Mr. Allen still lives in Walnut Grove.

Passage source: The History of Redwood County, Minnesota, published 1916.

Among the earliest settlers were Elias and Lafayette Bedal. The first building on the site of the present village of Walnut Grove was the claim shanty of Elias Bedal. It was in 1873 that Lafayette Bedal was appointed the first postmaster, a position he held until 1879, when J. H. Anderson received the appointment.

Passage source: The History of Redwood County, Minnesota, published 1916.

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 Walnut Grove City - it names this place 13 more 13 times.

Storms near this place

21 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Walnut Grove in 21 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 11 hail, 8 thunderstorm wind, 1 funnel cloud, 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
August 2025Flash FloodWalnut Grove-Law enforcement reported water over portions of US Highway 14 near Walnut Grove, to the point where road/lane markers cannot be seen.
May 2004Thunderstorm WindWalnut Grove-Six inch diameter branches were downed.
June 2003HailWalnut Grove-Minor damage to corn.
July 2002Thunderstorm WindWalnut Grove-Scattered trees down.
July 2001Thunderstorm WindWalnut Grove-Numerous 8 inch branches downed.
August 2000Thunderstorm WindWalnut Grove-Trees and power lines down.
June 1997Thunderstorm WindWalnut Grove-Large trees down. Estimated windspeed.
July 1995HailWalnut Grove-15,000 acres of crops destroyed.
June 1994Thunderstorm WindWalnut Grove-Several trees were blown down from strong thunderstorm winds.
May 2012HailWalnut Grove-no account filed
April 2011HailWalnut Grove-no account filed
August 2010Funnel CloudWalnut Grove-no account filed
August 2009HailWalnut Grove-no account filed
May 2008HailWalnut Grove-no account filed
May 2005HailWalnut Grove-no account filed
June 2004HailWalnut Grove-no account filed
July 2002HailWalnut Grove-no account filed
May 2000HailWalnut Grove-no account filed
July 1999HailWalnut Grove-no account filed
June 1998Thunderstorm WindWalnut Grove-no account filed
July 1998Thunderstorm WindWalnut Grove-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Redwood 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
Revere5.6 miles9
Lamberton10.9 miles9
Lucan13.3 miles9
Milroy14.2 miles9
Wanda15.1 miles9
Wabasso16.7 miles10
Sanborn18.1 miles9
Seaforth19.1 miles10

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 Walnut GroveAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q735022The 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 653743. 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.

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.