Carlos, MN

Carlos is a Douglas County city built around the meeting of a lake name, a railroad, and two roads. The 2020 census counted 497 residents. The townsite was platted in 1903 near the crossing of the Soo Line railroad and County Highway 13, and the city took its name from nearby Lake Carlos. Minnesota 29 and County 13 remain the main routes through the community, linking the city to the county’s lake-and-farm landscape.

Within two years of the plat, Carlos had general stores, a harness shop, livery stable, lumberyard, bank, post office, depot agent, and grain elevators. A two-room school followed around 1906; rural-school consolidation led to a larger local school in 1959, with an addition in 1978. Those details still show how the city’s layout formed: Main Street institutions grew beside rail and road traffic, and the school remained a local institution after the surrounding rural schools closed. Lake Carlos lies five miles north of Alexandria, with Lake Carlos State Park along its northern shore, so the city shares its name and regional setting with one of Douglas County’s major lakes.