Small Town USA: Crookston, MN

While visiting my brother and sister-in-law in North Dakota, just over the border from Minnesota, we decided to go on an adventure to a small town about 30 minutes from their apartment. We decided on Crookston, MN because of some of the pictures we saw online – particularly of this beautiful Catholic church building.

After packing a picnic lunch and piling everyone in the car, we drove across the Red River and followed Google Maps to our destination. 

As we drove into town we could see the spires in the distance. But the navigation appeared to be taking us in the opposite direction. Turns out the directions were wrong. While there is a church building at the address listed online, the one we wanted was across town.

The good news is, at 212 feet tall, it is the tallest building in town, so we were able to make our way to the correct location without too much trouble. We were even greeted by a woman who is working to upkeep and restore the building. And the building needs it. The doors and many of the windows are boarded up; the stained glass windows were stolen (I never got the details on why or how…) and it is generally in greater disrepair than the pictures online showed:

Right across the street from the church was a public library! I knew it just from the architecture :) 

We went in and I read a few books to Alexia: 

After reading, I couldn't resist taking a few pics of some of the gems around the room:

Everyone was hungry, so we went to Central Park (nothing like the park with the same name in New York City!) and ate our picnic lunch. With full bellies, we went in search of the town mural - and were successful!

Before heading back, we found a few more fun finds - like the large ox with cart and mountain man in front of their local theater:

Some signs that made us laugh:

The University of Minnesota Crookston campus flag flower bed:

And we took a drive to a nature reserve (that I don't think we were supposed to visit...)

The last thing we did in Minnesota was drive over the bridge between Grand Forks and East Grand Forks three times before I was able to capture the "Welcome to Minnesota" sign (in the rain, with the windshield wipers on!)

Success!!