Evansville, MN

Evansville is a small city in Douglas County, west-central Minnesota, where the map is a mix of farm country, lakes, and old rail lines. The town was platted in 1879 when the railroad reached this point, and the 2020 census counted 603 people. That beginning still matters: Evansville's first commercial advantage was the ability to move people, mail, grain, and other goods through a county that otherwise ran on long roads between small communities.

The current local story is the grocery store. It opens a few days a week to anyone, while cooperative members can use self-service shopping at other times, a practical arrangement for a town too small to support a conventional full-time schedule. That is less a novelty than a snapshot of how Evansville keeps necessities close. The local scoop is a railroad-founded Douglas County city with a cooperative streak, a 603-person scale, and a grocery solution built around people knowing how to make the doors work for them.