Minnesota Counties, Ranked: Number 85, Traverse County

There are 87 counties in Minnesota. I’ve lived here my entire life, so I am the only one both qualified and fearless enough to rank them from 1-87. While these rankings are just my opinion, they are correct and not subject to debate. If you disagree, you are wrong and a bad person.

OVERVIEW: My dad worked for the telephone company. He was, at least for a time, a lineman for the county. His work took him all over the back roads of rural Minnesota. Not the part with lakes and cabins and majestic forests, but the flat-as-a-fucking-pancake part with seven farmers who all hated each other for being the wrong kind of Lutheran.

He didn't complain too much, but when he did, he'd mention the kind of bass ackwards town where you couldn't get a meal or a cold beer or a hotel room. "Wheaton," he said more than once. "Goddamn, I hate Wheaton."

Wheaton is the most populous city in Traverse County, Minnesota's least-populous county. I award them zero points. May God have mercy on their souls.

NAMED AFTER: Lake Traverse, the Americanized version of the French Lac Traverse, meaning "across the lake." Way to stretch yourself on the name, guys. Were you on deadline?

LARGEST CITY: Wheaton. Population: 1,460.

DOES IT HAVE A PIZZA RANCH: lol

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE: See above.

REDEEMING QUALITIES: Sadly, our mini-run of unexpected statuary has come to an end. However, Browns Valley has a Carnegie Library (pictured above), a reminder of a time when the fantastically wealthy tried to make the world a better place instead of draining the earth's oceans to make AI slop that your high school bully shares on Facebook.

In addition, during the winter, Traverse and is one of the counties that's seemingly in a constant Blizzard Warning, which seems kind of fun if you don't live there. And so many of you don't!

CELEBS: We have two local stars!

Before moving to Staples, longtime Minnesota Twins announcer Dick Bremer grew up in Dumont (population: 75). Like me, a product of SCSU. His son Erik is the voice of your Pensacola Blue Wahoos and will occasionally send me updates about obscure former Twins.

KARE 11 reporter Lou Raguse is from Wheaton. Midwest Excellence's Pheasant Conference (this is a real athletic conference, don't say I'm lying) Correspondent Jon Marthaler has more:

Lou was the best athlete by far on their football and basketball teams, which meant he was basically on his own.

I got to know him a little because he also went to the U. We played on some intramural flag football teams together on the theory that the more Pheasant Conference alumni we had, the better. This did not prove to be true.

LETTER GRADE: F

READER FEEDBACK

Remember last week, when we had some fond-ish defenses of Wilkin County?Yeah, not so much for Norman.

From subscriber James U.:

I spent 3 springs in the 90s working for the Nature Conservancy based out Glyndon in nearby Clay County. The most memorable thing that happened (in Norman) was that we started a small peat fire in one of the prairie preserves we were prescribed burning. We had to come back daily for two weeks and pour water on it.

If you burned down Norman County, would anyone notice?

From reader Ye Olde Prickle Factory:

Ada! Back when I was a wee young finance lass, I was offered a promotion with the bank where I worked on the condition that I move to either Ada or Hoyt Lakes. I did not move. I think that was a smart choice.

That was a smart choice.

See you tomorrow.