Littlefork, MN

Littlefork is a Koochiching County city in northern Minnesota, where the 2020 census counted 553 residents. U.S. Highway 71 and state highways 65 and 217 pass through town. The former Northern Pacific route is now part of the Blue Ox Trail, giving the city a connection to both railroad and trail travel. Littlefork took its name from the nearby Little Fork River, and its post office has operated since 1902.

The river flows north to meet the Rainy River and was named for being the smaller of two tributaries in that system. Its Ojibwe name referred to a river separating canoe routes, a reminder of the waterway's older travel role. White and red pine logging shaped the region in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; the last major log drive down the Little Fork and Rainy rivers took place in 1937. The river became a state water trail in 1963, and today it gives Littlefork its name, landscape, and strongest local thread.