Pennington

Formed November 23, 1910 (86^th county)

Pennington County (13,999), Thief River Falls (8,864)

The Modern courthouse was built in 1954 at the corner of Main Avenue and 1^st Street.  Minnesota State Highway 32 is Main Street.  Foss & Company are the architects of this tan brick and concrete structure.  A basic building from 1910 preceded the current facility.  A Justice Center was built in 2018.  The county was established on November 23, 1910 from Red Lake County as the 86^th county with Thief River Falls as the only county seat.  The county is named for railroad officer Edmund Pennington.  The county seat is named for local falls on the Red Lake River where it joins the Thief River. 

The area of the county is 616.5 square miles.  It is 50 out of 87 in the state.  It ranks 59 out of 87 in population in the state.  It has a density of 22.7 persons per square mile making it 51 out of 87 in the state.  Pennington County has 66.1% of its population in its incorporated areas.  United States Highway 59 travels through the county north to south from Marshall County to Red Lake County.  The county is a rectangle with an added foot on the southeast corner.  Thief River Falls is in the northwest quarter of the county.  Thief River Falls is the county seat and the largest city.  It is 63.3% of the county population. 

Pennington County government consists of a sheriff, an administrator, an attorney, a treasurer, an auditor, an assessor and a clerk (executive).  It has 5 Commissioners (legislative.)  Twenty-two District Court Judges serve Pennington, Aitkin, Beltrami, Cass, Clearwater, Crow Wing, Hubbard, Itasca, Kittson, Koochiching, Lake of the Woods, Mahnomen, Marshall, Norman, Polk, Red Lake, and Roseau counties (judicial.) The county is in the northwest part of the state.  Minneapolis, Minnesota is southeast and Grand Forks, North Dakota is west of the county.  The county center is 7.9 miles Southeast of Thief River Falls.  The county is surrounded clockwise by Marshall, Beltrami, Clearwater, Polk, and Red Lake counties.