Gaylord boxes in Sherburne County

Sherburne County lies north-west of the metro on the Mississippi. Elk River is its centre, and the first rural nuclear power plant in the US went online at the Great River Energy site there in 1960.

Sherburne's record centres on Elk River and the power-and-utility work around it. That means supplies, scrap and spent packaging in small counts rather than production runs. A short note on what the box will carry, and whether it stays indoors, is nearly all we need.

Sherburne County at a glance

Sherburne County's page gives 97,183 people at the 2020 census and 104,194 at the 2025 estimate over 451 square miles. It notes the soils hold considerable sand and gravel, making them less suitable for agriculture than much of Minnesota, which is why aggregate work shows up in the county.

Three rivers meet here: the Mississippi on the south border, the Rum in the upper east, and the Elk, which empties into the Mississippi at Elk River city after taking in the Saint Francis. The cities named are Baldwin, Becker, Big Lake, Clear Lake, Elk River (the county seat), Zimmerman and parts of Princeton and St. Cloud. Roads named are U.S. 10 and 169 and Minnesota 24, 25, 101 and 301.

How the roads run

US 10 and US 169 run through the county, along the Mississippi River.

Towns in Sherburne

Sherburne's towns lean on power and utilities (1). The largest towns are Elk River.

Elk River

The first rural nuclear power plant in the US went online at Great River Energy's Elk River site in 1960.

Elk River sits at the confluence of the Mississippi and Elk rivers. Water power from the Elk supported a sawmill built in 1851, a dam created Lake Orono, and hydropower gave a new reason to dam the river in 1915. Gravel mining is prevalent because of the coarse material left by glaciation, and agriculture and dairy replaced lumber as the economic base late in the nineteenth century.

Great River Energy's site housed the first rural nuclear power plant in the United States, online in 1960 as a demonstration and dismantled after several years, and that the plant was converted in the late 1980s to burn refuse-derived fuel. U.S. 10 and U.S. 169 meet in the town and run together for 12 miles to Anoka, and Highway 101 links south to Interstate 94, seven miles away. Northstar commuter rail served the town from November 2009 until it closed in January 2026.

Why the page is short

The sources for Sherburne County is thin, with Elk River as its only town section. If you run a business here that the sources do not list, tell us what it makes and what the boxes will carry.

Questions, answered