Thief River Falls, sometimes abbreviated as TRF, is a city and county seat of Pennington County in the northwest portion of the U.S. state of Minnesota. The population was 8,749 at the 2020 census.
History
Thief River Falls takes its name from a geographic feature, the falls of the Red Lake River at its confluence with the Thief River. The name of the river is a loose translation of the Ojibwe phrase Gimood-akiwi ziibi, literally, the "Stolen-land river" or "Thieving-land river", which originated when a band of Dakota Indians occupied a secret encampment along the river, hence "stealing" the land, before being discovered and routed by the neighboring Ojibwe. In the Treaty of Old Crossing of 1863, the Moose Dung's Indian Reservation was established on the west bank of the Thief River, at its confluence with Red Lake River. This Indian Reservation was dissolved in 1904 and their population incorporated as part of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa.
Thief River Falls marked the limit of navigation on the Red Lake River. The eponymous town site was established in 1887 and later incorporated as a city in 1896.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water.
Thief River Falls is located at the confluence of the Red Lake and Thief rivers. U.S. Highway 59 and Minnesota State Highways 1 and 32 are the three main routes in the community. Thief River Falls is located approximately south of the Canada–United States border and northeast of Grand Forks, North Dakota, in the northwest region of Minnesota.
Climate
Thief River Falls has a humid continental climate (Dwb) with warm to hot summers and cold to severely cold winters.