Birchwood Village, MN

Birchwood Village is a Washington County city on the south and east shores of White Bear Lake, with 863 residents in the 2020 census. The place began as a summer-cottage community: the earliest cottages appeared around 1876, and growth accelerated when Wildwood Amusement Park opened just east of the present city limits. An electric streetcar reached Birchwood in 1904, linking the lake shore to White Bear Lake and the Twin Cities. The shoreline still organizes the city. Birch Beach, Ash Beach, Wildwood Park, Polly's Park, and the small paths between them sit alongside residential streets, while the one-mile Birchwood trail corridor follows Wildwood, Lake, and Hall avenues as part of the larger Lake Links network around White Bear Lake.

The city is fully built out, so current work focuses on maintaining its parks, beaches, paths, tennis court, ice rink, and marsh areas. Birchwood Village is a lakeshore city whose old cottage-and-streetcar map is still visible in the way people reach the water.