Hilltop is a city in Anoka County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 958 at the 2020 census.
The city is a small enclave within the city of Columbia Heights and consists of 16 city blocks. Minnesota State Highway 65 (Central Avenue) serves as a main route, running on the town's eastern edge.
Most of Hilltop's residents live in the 263 mobile homes across four trailer parks within the city's borders. Hilltop is one of only two incorporated cities in Minnesota that consist primarily of manufactured housing; the second is another Twin Cities suburb, Landfall.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of , all land.
Hilltop is an enclave within Columbia Heights.
History
The land where Hilltop sits was originally an unincorporated part of the former Fridley Township, a civil township next to the city of Fridley. The land had a dairy farm and was later the Oak Grove Riding Academy and Stables. The first trailer park, Trailer City, opened on the land in the 1940s; another park, Sunnyside, soon opened next door. Residents of two trailer parks became concerned that the township was planning to remove the mobile homes. In 1956, led by Trailer City Park owner Les Johnson, they approached Columbia Heights and requested to be annexed by the city. Columbia Heights turned down their request, so Johnson circulated a petition to have the residents vote on incorporation. The petition for incorporation passed, 137 to 34, and Hilltop was created.
Columbia Heights soon annexed all the land surrounding Hilltop and began to make antagonistic moves toward the young town, at one point threatening to halt Hilltop's water and sewer service for punitive reasons. Another source of conflict was Hilltop's plan to issue liquor licenses, which would compete with Columbia Heights's municipal liquor store that accounted for a third of the city's operating budget. Instead of initially contracting with Columbia Heights, Hilltop contracted its fire protection from Fridley and established its own police department by hiring a retired highway patrolman as police chief and three part-time officers. By 1959, tensions rose to the point where the Metropolitan Municipalities Commission, a predecessor of the Twin Cities-wide Metropolitan Council, asked then State Attorney General Walter Mondale to contest the Hilltop charter to the Minnesota Supreme Court. In 1980, three prison escapees were captured hiding out in the trailer of one of their mothers. In 1987, there was a murder-suicide involving a brother and sister. Hilltop's annual budget was $250,000 at the time, and the crisis nearly drove the city to bankruptcy and jeopardized its police protection agreement with Columbia Heights. The city was ultimately saved by insurance and a fidelity bond. In 1995, Hilltop received more unwanted attention when the Star Tribune ran the headline "Tiny Hilltop is Crime Capital" due to its 131 serious crimes in 1994, which worked out to one for every six residents.
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|footnote=U.S. Decennial Census<br>2020 Census