Gaylord boxes in Anoka County

Anoka County sits north of the cities, with the Mississippi on its west edge. Fridley has a Medtronic site, a Target distribution centre and BNSF's Northtown yard; Anoka, Blaine and Coon Rapids carry metal, plastics and food.

Anoka mixes three habits: Fridley's device and distribution work, Blaine's plastics and metal, and the quieter cities with a few shops each. The first group wants clean, dry, graded boxes; the second wants strong walls for dense parts; the third wants small counts that arrive with little fuss.

Anoka County at a glance

Anoka County's page gives 363,887 people at the 2020 census and a 2025 estimate of 381,605, over 446 square miles of which 23 are water. Blaine is the largest city and Anoka the county seat. The Mississippi forms the southwestern boundary, and the Rum River and Rice Creek cross the county.

Named roads are Interstates 35, 35E, 35W and 694, U.S. 10 and 169, and Minnesota 47, 65, 97 and 610.

How the roads run

I-35W and I-35E run along its east and west sides, with US 10, MN 65 and MN 610 crossing between.

Towns in Anoka

Anoka's towns lean on industrial and metal products (4), medical devices (2), distribution, parcel and logistics (1) and plastics, polymers and adhesives (1). The largest towns are Blaine, Coon Rapids and Andover.

Fridley

Population 30,679 (Census estimate, July 2024). Medtronic, a Target distribution centre and BNSF's Northtown classification yard.

Fridley's largest employer is Medtronic (3,366 in the 2021 report) ahead of Target (1,301), Unity Medical Center (1,215), Cummins Power (1,099), Minco Products (592), BAE Systems (550) and Kurt Manufacturing (275). The city holds Medtronic's operational headquarters and Rice Creek campus, a Target retail distribution center, a Cummins plant where electrolyzers for hydrogen cells are to be produced, and the Totino's frozen pizza factory, opened in 1970 and sold to Pillsbury in 1975.

Blaine

Population 75,172 (Census estimate, July 2024). Aveda (700) and Infinite Campus (650) lead the city's employers.

Blaine's top employers in the 2022 report include Aveda Corporation (700), Infinite Campus (650), Cub Foods (435, four locations), Carley Foundry (350) and the National Sports Center (325) with Dayton Rogers Manufacturing among its corporate residents. Sand mining opened thousands of acres of peat sod farms for development.

Coon Rapids

Population 63,807 (Census estimate, July 2024). Mercy Health (1,860) leads the city's employers, and the 1914 Coon Rapids Dam made it the northernmost navigable point on the Mississippi River.

Coon Rapids' top employers in the city's 2014 report were Mercy Health (1,860), Independent School District 11 (1,238), Mary T, Inc. (1,120), RMS Company (672) and Honeywell Aerospace (600) with printers John Roberts Company and ECM Publishers and furniture retailer HOM Furniture headquartered in the city. The Anoka Pressed Brick and Terra Cotta Company was founded in 1881 on the clay the page calls the Clay Hole.

Anoka

Federal Cartridge and Pentair were the two largest private employers in 2010.

Anoka's largest employers were Federal Cartridge (1,242 in the 2010 report), the school district (1,221), Pentair (1,217), the county government center (1,140), the regional treatment center (479), DecoPac (300), Mate Precision Tooling (300) and Firestone Building Products (201). Pine logs were floated down the Rum River to sawmills and that a flour mill operated by the mid-1850s.

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