Founding year: the first Long Prairie post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Long Prairie’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Long Prairie is more historic than 76% of U.S. towns, #36 of 273 in Minnesota. Its share of homes from before 1940 holds the grade up; its age pulls it down.
A−
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Long Prairie’s overall grade.
Minnesota towns list about as much on the Register as the country (a typical Minnesota town has 2.1 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Long Prairie’s 21.7 sits above most of its state (85% of Minnesota towns have fewer) while its 8 historic buildings outnumber those of 74% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from B to A. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±9.3 points). The founding year is the first post office, not a stated founding date.
Founding year: the first post office (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
What stands out about Long Prairie’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Long Prairie's history dates back to the time when the land was inhabited first by the Sioux/Dakota and then Anishinaabe/Ojibwe Native American tribes. In an 1846 treaty, the U.S. government gave a vast area in what is now central Minnesota to the Winnebago Indians (Ho-Chunk), known as the Long Prairie Reservation. A site at Long Prairie was chosen as headquarters for the tribe. In 1848, the tribe was resettled from the Neutral Ground in northeast Iowa to the Long Prairie Reservation. The journey North was a difficult and long trip, but once at the Long Prairie Reservation, the tribe built a functioning village with homes, a school, and a church. A subsequent treaty in 1855 again resettled the tribe in southern Minnesota.
The Long Prairie post office opened in 1850, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Long Prairie rank for history?
Long Prairie is more historic than 76% of U.S. towns, #36 of 273 in Minnesota. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
What is on the National Register in Long Prairie?
4 listings: 4 buildings, among them the Bank of Long Prairie (listed 1985, the first). 8 historic buildings in all.
How old are the homes in Long Prairie?
26% of Long Prairie’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±9.3 points), against a typical 8.1% for a Minnesota town; the median home was built in 1962.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
From Wikimedia Commons (5), Wikidata (1), the National Register of Historic Places (4), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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