Gaylords across the Twin Cities metro

The Twin Cities metro is a ring of counties, and gaylord demand differs around it. Dakota County has the Eagan parcel hub and the Lakeville industrial park. Hennepin has the medtech and distribution suburbs. Anoka has Fridley's medical-device and rail cluster. Scott has the Shakopee fulfillment and printing base. Each county page lists its towns with their sourced industries, its ZIP codes and the box styles its trades use.

How the area pages are built

Every county page, town section and city page on this site starts from the same sources: the Census estimate of population, the ZIP codes, the industries listed for the place and the sources named at the foot of the page. From there each page works out what a stack looks like for the trade that appears most often. When a town has no trade, the page says so and does not make one up.

That means the pages differ because the sources differs. Hennepin, Dakota and Ramsey counties carry long ledgers; Wright, Sherburne and St. Croix carry short ones. If your town is on neither list, pick the nearest county page and put the real ZIP on the request.

Counties at a glance

The ten county pages are the main entry. Each lists its towns, the ZIP codes, the main road and rail corridors and a stack example for its leading trade. Each county page also carries a section for its towns, with the local ledger of trades and what public sources say about the place; Minneapolis and St. Paul keep pages of their own.

A note on distances

The metro is wide. Elk River to Hastings is a long drive, and Hudson to Chaska crosses the whole ring. Because of that, a county page is a guide to the trades and roads of its area and not a promise about a delivery day. A pickup by your own truck is always worth mentioning.

Which page to open first

If you know your county, open its page and read the roads, the towns and the ZIP list. If you know your town, open it directly. If you know neither, run a request with the ZIP and the load. The counties are Hennepin, Ramsey, Dakota, Anoka, Washington, Scott, Carver, Wright, Sherburne and, across the river, St. Croix County in Wisconsin.

Why the metro is divided into counties here

A gaylord delivery is a trucking problem before it is a box problem, and trucking in the metro is organised by roads, which cut across county lines. When a road crosses two counties, the page for each mentions it.

The ten county pages share a structure so you can compare them, but the contents differ because the places differ. Hennepin is the long ledger with 68 ZIP codes. Ramsey is small and dense. Dakota is the county of docks. Anoka, Washington, Scott and Carver are growing edges with a mix of old plants and new warehouses. Wright, Sherburne and St. Croix are the outer ring, with short ledgers that say so.

Minneapolis and St. Paul have pages of their own, and every other town is a section of its county page. None of them is a yard, a showroom or a street address. It tells you what sources list for that place, what a box sized for it looks like, and what a request from there should say.

How to read a county ledger

Each county page begins with a lede that says what the county is for, then a short note on the roads and rail, then a ledger of its towns: name, population, the main trade and the first ZIP codes. The population column is the Census estimate from July 2024. The trade column is the sources' own word; where a town has no trade, the ledger says it is residential and covered by the county page.

Below the ledger sits a worked stack example for the county's leading trade, a note on the first question a request from there should answer, and the list of ZIP codes. If a figure on any of these pages looks wrong to you, tell us in a request. The facts are dated and sourced at the foot of each page.

Edges of the map

Two edges deserve a word. To the east, the St. Croix River separates Minnesota from Wisconsin, and St. Croix County sits on the far bank along the interstate; a delivery there crosses a bridge, and the bridge is part of the route. To the north-west, Wright and Sherburne counties run along the Mississippi and the interstate, with long stretches between towns. In both places a pickup by your own truck is often the simplest answer.

Inside the ring, the pattern reverses. Distances are short but docks are tight, schedules are crowded and traffic decides the day. A request from a dense neighbourhood should say when the dock is open and whether a large truck can reach it.

If you cannot find your town

Use the county page, find the nearest town section and put your real ZIP code on the request.

Counties, ZIPs and what the sources leaves out

Every number on the area pages is dated: populations are Census estimates for July 2024, job counts are from 2023 and employers are as the sources list them, not as they are today. A plant that opened or closed since is not reflected until the sources are refreshed. The point of the pages is not to be a directory but to show what trades a place is known for, so a reader can judge what its docks and its boxes are likely to look like.

Ten counties, one request form

The ten county pages, with their town sections, and the two city pages exist to help a reader find the page nearest their dock. They do not describe separate offices or yards, because there are none to describe. A request from any of them goes through the same form, and the ZIP code is the way a place is identified.

How the pages are checked

The pages are built from the cited sources, a short list of local notes and the Stack Check engine, and every build runs checks that compare each page against its siblings. Pages that share too much text fail, and pages with too little to say are flagged and not padded.

The county page and its ZIP list are the nearest reference for a town without its own section, and a request from there is as welcome as any other.

Roads, rivers and rail named on the county pages come from the cited sources, and nothing beyond them is claimed about any route, bridge or interchange. Distances between the outer counties and the core are real, so a route should be checked before a window is planned.

Questions, answered