Erskine, MN

Erskine is a city in Polk County, Minnesota. The 2020 census counted 403 residents. Erskine is part of the Greater Grand Forks region. Erskine was laid out in 1889, and named for George Quincy Erskine, a Minnesota banker. Erskine's town festival is known as the Erskine Water Carnival and held in early June. The Erskine Fish, the concrete statue that is the world's largest northern pike and the town's principal tourist attraction, is on a lawn in a small park on the shore of Cameron Lake, just down the street from downtown Erskine. The Oak Lake Golf Course is just east of town at the intersection of Highway 2 and U.S. Highway 59.

The best local resort and fishing areas are Maple Lake, a lake near Mentor, and Maple Bay, as well as Union Lake and Lake Sarah, a few miles south of Erskine. Until 1980, Erskine was mostly a service community for the local agricultural community. In the early 1900s, the town had four grain elevators, an ice plant, a lumber mill and several blacksmith shops. Taken together, these details give a newcomer a usable picture of Erskine, where its history, geography, and current gathering places meet. For Erskine, the memorable detail is the way older history and current gathering places share one local map.