Taylors Falls, MN

At the 2020 census, Taylors Falls was a Chisago County city of 1,055 people at the junction of U.S. Highway 8 and Minnesota 95. Jesse W. Taylor became the first permanent settler in 1838, when the St. Croix River was still a steamboat and logging highway. The falls are actually a series of rapids at the head of navigation, and the town grew by supplying provisions and building materials to inland communities and logging camps.

Interstate State Park gives Taylors Falls its geology lesson: the town sits beside the Dalles, where forested bluffs, basalt outcrops, cliffs, and glacial potholes crowd the river. Minnesota and Wisconsin created the first interstate state park in 1895, and the park still straddles the border south of town. On land, the Angel Hill Historic District and older Bench and River Street buildings preserve the 19th-century town scale. The river's cliffs keep town and park in the same conversation. Taylors Falls is a river port, logging town, geology field trip, and state-line neighbor all at once.