Star Tribune
What’s the story behind Minnesota enclaves in Arizona, Florida?
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Twin Cities native Derek Grimme left home at 18 to attend college in Arizona, not expecting to make it his permanent home.
But four years have turned into nearly three decades in the Grand Canyon State, where he’s found a new community of Minnesota natives who cheer on the Vikings at a brewery.
“There are a lot of Minnesotans down here,” said Grimme, 46, of Tempe. “Maybe Minnesotans just have a way of finding one another.”
He turned to Curious Minnesota, the Star Tribune’s reader-generated reporting project, to ask about the history and reason that so many Minnesotans have moved to Arizona and the Southwest.
Arizona is one of several states that boasts enclaves of Minnesota natives, some of whom are snowbirds who fly back north as temperatures rise. Data show that outside of the Midwest, Sun Belt states like California, Florida and Texas are top destinations for former Minnesotans. Warm weather is obviously one draw. But research is limited on why people leave or return.
Do you have a story about one of these communities? Send us a note at Curious@StarTribune.com and we may feature it in a future column or episode of the Curious Minnesota podcast.
‘A warm Edina’
There is a long tradition of Minnesotans uniting in places like Phoenix and Naples, Fla. Some of these Minnesota enclaves began popping up in the 1940s and 1950s as improved air and auto travel inspired Americans to explore. Then, in the 1960s, the development of RV resorts and retirement communities drew more retirees and snowbirds.
A 1949 Minneapolis Star article noted that Arizona had taken off as a popular destination for winter getaways in that decade, thanks to air travel. By the 1950s, a Minnesota Club had started in Mesa. The developer of the Sun City retirement community near Phoenix estimated in 1976 that 10% of the residents were former Minnesotans, according to an article in the Star.
A survey in the late 1980s found that Minnesota snowbirds were the largest contingent of U.S. snowbirds in Arizona, representing 11% of its seasonal residents.
Naples had barely established roads when a few Minnesotans started vacationing there in the 1950s, luring other friends and family to escape winter on the Gulf Coast, said Mike Schumann, a St. Louis Park furniture store owner who lives in Naples.
Once described in a front page Star Tribune headline as “a warm Edina,” the affluent city of Naples had so many Minnesotans by the 1960s that they launched a weekly winter breakfast club in 1964 that still meets today for Q&As with Minnesota politicians and CEOs. (The CEO of General Mills and Speaker of the Minnesota House are scheduled to appear there this month.)
“I run into Minnesotans constantly,” Schumann, 72, said from Florida on a 70-degree day last week.
Half the Minnesotans at the weekly breakfast are transplants, while others are snowbirds or even weekend visitors, Schumann said. He said that people often vacation or move where they already have family or friends. Plus, southwest Florida hosts the Twins’ spring training.
“It kind of grows on them,” he said. “They come down here on a vacation … and start talking about buying a house.”
There are about 44,000 snowbirds who keep a residence in Minnesota but live elsewhere part-time, with Arizona, Florida and Texas being the most popular spots, according to a 2015 survey by the Minnesota Board of Aging.
For Schumann and his wife, it was an April blizzard that spurred them to board a flight, desperate for sunshine and palm trees. That 2002 vacation quickly snowballed into the couple buying a house and opening a business in Naples. A couple years ago, they became Florida residents so he could get politically involved, though they still return to Minnesota often — including for health care and summers on a Wisconsin lake.
“Minnesota is still a really important part of people’s lives here,” he said.
Losing college students
Minnesota drew more new residents than it lost to other states during the 1990s. But that trend has changed since 2001. On average, from 2018 to 2022, Minnesota gained 104,000 residents and lost 121,000 residents each year, said State Demographer Susan Brower. Other Midwest states are experiencing similar losses.
Brower said 18- to 19-year-olds represent the highest number of net losses in domestic migration, moving elsewhere for college or to start careers. In fact, Minnesota loses more college students than it attracts.
When Fridley native Andria Fennig was 25, she traded blizzards for dust storms and moved to Phoenix for an affordable graduate school program. She didn’t plan to stay 30 years. But she’s built a musical career and life there after nixing plans to relocate to pricey New York City.
“Phoenix has been a bargain until the last four or five years. But you don’t need four seasons of clothes,” Fennig, 53. “You grow your roots and say, ‘I’m very content here.'”
She’s also found a community of former Minnesotans, including Grimme, at Four Peaks Brewing Co. in Tempe. The business was started by ex-Minnesotans.
“It’s a big Vikings hangout,” she said.
Minnesotans changing their addresses on income tax returns most often relocate to Wisconsin, Florida, Texas, North Dakota, California and Arizona, according to IRS data. Census surveys show similar patterns, and that people are also moving to Minnesota from those places. California, Florida and Arizona are among the top states of origin for people relocating to Minnesota, according to Census data.
Minnesota’s workforce shortages and low unemployment rate are making it more urgent to attract and retain residents. A 2023 Minnesota Chamber Foundation report noted that, unlike with immigration, state policymakers have more control over factors that influence state-to-state migration. States that retain residents better have favorable climates and competitive tax rates, according to the report.
In March, Explore Minnesota is launching its first-ever national brand campaign to sell Americans on a move to the Land of 10,000 Lakes. The agency has started a new division to draw newcomers. But Brower said it will take a significant and sustained shift in state-by-state migration to address workforce shortages.
Why people permanently move is harder to track, she said, adding that there’s limited academic research of tax policy impacting state-by-state migration, except among high-earners or inventors.
“There really is no one clear explanation,” Brower said. “It’s not necessarily about policies or amenities or taxes that are occurring here. These trends are much larger than we are.”
If you’d like to submit a Curious Minnesota question, fill out the form below:
Read more Curious Minnesota stories:
Does Minnesota have the coldest and longest winters of any of the US states?
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Why workers are reluctant to come to Minnesota, but stay once they’re here
How did Minnesota become a recurring ‘Golden Girls’ joke?
What are Minnesota’s most popular tourist attractions?
Anti-police brutality activists interrupted a Minneapolis City Council meeting Thursday to call for Police Chief Brian O’Hara’s firing, saying his department failed a Black man who begged police for help for months, to no avail, before he was finally shot in the neck by his white neighbor.
John Sawchak, 54, is charged with shooting Davis Moturi, 34, even though three warrants had been issued for his arrest in connection with threats to Moturi and other neighbors.
Activists showed up at the council meeting and asked for time to talk about the case. Instead, the council recessed and activists took the podium and castigated the city for failing Black people, even as state and federal officials are forcing the police department into court-sanctioned monitoring because of past civil rights violations.
Nekima Levy Armstrong, founder of the Racial Justice Network, said O’Hara needs to be held accountable.
“This is not the first time instance where the community has raised concerns about his poor judgment, poor leadership, blaming the community and excuses. It’s completely unacceptable for him to get away with it,” she said. “How many Black people’s doors have they kicked in for less?”
On Thursday the council voted to request the city auditor review the city’s involvement in and response to the matters between Moturi and Sawchak.
Mayor Jacob Frey released a statement in response saying he supports the council’s call for an independent review of the case, but O’Hara “will continue to be the Minneapolis police chief.”
Protesters also questioned why the public hadn’t heard from Community Safety Commissioner Toddrick Barnette, who called a news conference within hours to say he’s not going to fire O’Hara and the city leadership supports him.
A Girl Scout from Troop 58068 told the Woodbury City Council recently that they should allow backyard chickens in the city: They cheer people up, she said.
It turned out that chickens were on an upcoming agenda and, perhaps pushed a bit by the scout’s lobbying, the Woodbury City Council at their next meeting passed a new ordinance allowing for backyard hens.
The new ordinance went into effect on Oct. 23, the night of the council meeting, and will allow people who live on property zoned R-2, a “rural estate” district, to have backyard chickens. A typical city lot is zoned R-4 and those areas still cannot have chickens, the council said.
The city has received requests “here and there” for the last several years about backyard chickens, City Council Member Andrea Date said.
Backyard chickens come have home to roost — and never leave — in a host of other Minnesota cities that allow them, from Hopkins to Thief River Falls. It’s long been allowed in both St. Paul and Minneapolis, and new cities started approving backyard coops during the pandemic, when interest spiked.
In Woodbury, it wasn’t until the question was included on the city’s biannual survey that city staff knew how people felt. The survey found less support for chickens on a typical city lot — just 13% of respondents said they strongly approve of the idea while 43% percent strongly disapproved — but a majority approved of backyard chickens on lots of 1 acre or more.
The city’s rules until recently only allowed chickens on “rural estate” properties of five or more acres.
The new ordinance allows up to six hens, but no roosters, on property less than four acres that meets the zoning requirements. Larger properties can have an additional two chickens per acre above four acres. The ordinance also sets a height limit for chicken coops of 7 feet. No license or permit is required in Woodbury for backyard chickens.
Star Tribune
Anonymous donor pays overdue bill for Fergus Falls home where town’s first Black resident lived
A $10,000 overdue special assessment bill threatening tax forfeiture of a historic Fergus Falls home was paid off this week thanks to an anonymous donor.
Prince Albert Honeycutt lived at 612 Summit Avenue East, renamed Honeycutt Memorial Drive in 2021. Not only was Honeycutt the town’s first Black resident — settling there in 1872 from Tennessee — he was the state’s first Black professional baseball player, first Black firefighter and first Black mayoral candidate.
He was an early pioneer and prominent businessman who owned a barbershop in town. Missy Hermes, with the Otter Tail County Historical Society, said Honeycutt and his wife were likely the first Black people in Minnesota to testify in a capital murder trial of a man who was convicted and hanged in Fergus Falls.
“In other places, you would never have a Black person testifying against a white person, especially a woman, too, before women could vote even,” Hermes said. “Obviously he was respected enough.”
Nancy Ann and Prince Albert Honeycutt with their children inside the now-historic Honeycutt house in 1914. Photo from the collections of the Otter Tail County Historical Society.
When dozens of people from Kentucky moved to Fergus Falls in April 1898, known as “the first 85,” Honeycutt helped integrate them into the community.
He died in 1924 at age 71 and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Fergus Falls.
Up until 2016, several owners lived in the Honeycutt home. But the city bought and sold the house to nonprofit Flowingbrook Ministry for $1 to take over the tax-exempt property and operate the ministry.
Ministry founder Lynette Higgins-Orr, who previously lived in Fergus Falls, moved to Florida several years ago and little activity has been going on in the historic home since. But she said there are plans to make it into a museum.
