Austin is a city in and the county seat of Mower County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 26,174 at the 2020 census. The town was originally settled along the Cedar River and has two artificial lakes, East Side Lake and Mill Pond. It was named for Austin R. Nichols, the area's first European settler. It is part of the Rochester–Austin combined statistical area. Austin is home to Hormel's corporate headquarters, a factory that makes most of North America's SPAM tinned meat, and the Spam Museum. Austin is also home to the Hormel Institute, a leading cancer research institution operated by the University of Minnesota with significant support from the Mayo Clinic.
History
19th century
thumb|Southern Minnesota Normal College, 1907
Fertile land, trapping, and ease of access brought first trappers and then the early pioneers to this region. The rich gameland attracted Austin Nichols, a trapper who built the first log cabin in 1853. At that time there were "about twenty families in the area." In 1856 the settlement adopted the name "Austin", in honor of its first settler. That year the first hotel opened to travelers and the first physician, Dr. Ormanzo Allen, moved to town. The first newspaper, the Mower County Mirror, was started in 1858. which eventually grew into today's Fortune 500 company, Hormel Foods. By 1896 area doctors, with the help of local Lutheran congregations, formed the Austin Hospital Association, later becoming St. Olaf Hospital, and (since 1995) part of Mayo Clinic Health System.
In 1897 Charles Boostrom opened Austin's first college, the Southern Minnesota Normal College and Austin School of Commerce. It closed in 1925, and the city was without an institution of higher education until Austin Junior College opened in 1940. In 1964 it became part of the State College and University System and is now Riverland Community College.
20th century
thumb|left|A postcard from the 1920s showing the [[Hormel meatpacking plant]]
In 1913 the Minnesota Legislature made a parcel of land into Horace Austin State Park. At the time, the land was "one of the beauty spots of Southern Minnesota, but of late years has not been cared for and in places the banks have been disfigured by dumping along the shore of the stream," according to the bill's author, Senator Charles F. Cook. The park was converted to a state "scenic wayside" in 1937, then transferred to city ownership in 1949.
In the 1930s Austin Acres was built with funding from the Subsistence Homesteads Division of the Department of the Interior. The Austin Parks Board was formed in the 1940s to oversee the growing number of green spaces within the city.
In 1971 the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center, a nature preserve also including the Hormel Arboretum, was purchased from Geordie Hormel with a state grant. In 1973 the city opened Riverside Arena, the city's first indoor ice arena, now home to a variety of ice activities including the Austin Bruins junior hockey team.
In August 1985, 1,500 Hormel meatpackers went on strike at the Austin plant after management demanded a 23% cut in wages. In the early 1980s, recession had impacted several meatpacking companies, decreasing demand and increasing competition which led smaller and less-efficient companies to go out of business. In an effort to keep plants from closing, many instituted wage cuts. Wilson Food Company declared bankruptcy in 1983, allowing them to cut wages from $10.69 to $6.50 and significantly reduce benefits. Hormel Foods had avoided such drastic action, but by 1985, pressure to stay competitive remained. A protracted battle between union employees and Hormel continued until June 1986, one of the longest labor struggles of the 1980s. In January 1986 some workers crossed the picket lines, leading to riots; the conflict escalated to such a point that Governor Rudy Perpich called in the National Guard to keep the peace. The strike received national attention and a documentary, American Dream, was filmed during the 10-month conflict. The movie was released in 1990 and won Best Documentary Feature at the 63rd Annual Academy Awards. Dave Pirner of the Minneapolis band Soul Asylum wrote a song about the strike, "P-9". It is on the band's 1989 album Clam Dip & Other Delights. Hormel never gave in to the workers' demands, and when the strike ended in June 1986, 700 employees were left without work.
21st century
Austin completed a new $28 million courthouse and jail in 2010, a new intermediate school in 2013, and has a major redevelopment project at the site of the former Oak Park Mall. One goal is to make the downtown business district more of a destination, aided in part by the Spam Museum's relocation to Main Street in 2016.
In 2015 the National Association of Realtors named Austin one of the "Top 10 Affordable Small Towns Where You'd Actually Want to Live."
Major floods
thumb|left|Cedar River and Ramsey Dam
Austin has a long history of flooding. The Cedar River, along with Dobbins Creek and Turtle Creek, flow through Austin, and many homes and businesses were constructed in floodplains. A series of floods between 1978 and 2010 resulted in a major flood mitigation program. This involved the purchase and demolition of buildings within the floodplain, converting low-lying areas of town to parks, and the installation of a flood wall to protect downtown.
Major tornadoes
thumb|Tornado damage in Austin, 2009
On Monday, August 20, 1928, an F-2 sized tornado touched down on Winona Street (1st Avenue). The damage ran from the southern edge of Austin High School to the Milwaukee Road railyards on the city's east side. St. Olaf Lutheran Church, Carnegie Library, Main Street, the spire on Austin's former courthouse, Grand Theatre (replaced in 1929 by the Paramount Theatre), Austin Utilities, Lincoln School, and several boxcars at the Milwaukee railyards were damaged or destroyed. Austin residents noticed debris raining out of the sky, such as straw and laundry.
Another F-2 touched down in August 1961, at 808 18th Street SW. It quickly gained strength once on the ground, becoming an F-3 at 17th Street SW, where it destroyed a garage. The twister lifted briefly, touching down in the city fairgrounds and hitting the grandstand roof, tearing off parts and damaging beams.
In the summer of 1984, a tornado destroyed Echo Lanes Bowling Alley as it swept through southeast Austin. Neighboring Bo-Dee Campers also suffered considerable damage, and Schmidt TV was destroyed.
A tornado or straight-line winds took down massive amounts of branches and trees on Saturday, June 27, 1998, uprooting smaller trees and knocking large branches across streets. Several side streets in northwest Austin became impassable, including 8th Avenue NW (near Sumner Elementary School) and 14th Street NW (between I-90 and 8th Avenue). The event caused disruption in Sunday church services the next morning, and many congregations organized cleanup activities instead of regularly scheduled events.
A tornado touched down in Glenville on May 1, 2001, gaining strength before it turned into a F-3 headed for Austin. The twister dissipated shortly after hitting town, but did notable damage in both cities.
On Wednesday, June 17, 2009, an EF2 tornado touched down outside Austin and moved across the northwest and northern parts of the city, gradually weakening as it moved east. The worst damage in Austin was about north of downtown. The visitors center at the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center sustained damage, losing 300 trees. There were a few minor injuries.
Geography
thumb|right|[[Interstate 90|I-90 on the east side <br> by the Austin Municipal Airport]]
Austin is in western Mower County in southeastern Minnesota. It is east of Albert Lea, southwest of Rochester, south of Minneapolis, and north of the Iowa border. The city is bordered to the south by Austin Township, to the east by Windom and Red Rock townships, and to the north by Lansing Township and the city of Mapleview. Austin is bordered to the west by Oakland Township in Freeborn County.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Austin has a total area of , of which are land and , or 0.79%, are water. Below is a table of average high and low temperatures in Austin.