Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Albert Lea, MN

Albert Lea is a city in southern Minnesota and the county seat of Freeborn County, about 90 miles south of the Twin Cities near the Iowa border.

The city is named for Albert Lea Lake, which honors Lieutenant Albert Miller Lea, a U.S. Dragoons topographer who surveyed southern Minnesota and northern Iowa in 1835; the scout for his unit was Captain Nathan Boone, a son of frontiersman Daniel Boone.

The first settler on the present site, Lorenzo Merry, built a cabin there in June 1855, and Albert Lea was incorporated as a village in 1859 and as a city in 1878.

Albert Lea's motto is "Land Between the Lakes" — the city stands on the shores of Fountain Lake, Albert Lea Lake, Pickerel Lake, Goose Lake, School Lake and Lake Chapeau, with Fountain Lake and Albert Lea Lake forming part of the Shell Rock River flowage.

Albert Lea became the Freeborn County seat in 1859, according to local tradition, as the result of a horse race its backers won against the rival town of Itasca, which no longer exists.

Fountain Lake itself was created when early settler George Ruble dammed the slough at the east end of his mill site.

Albert Lea sits at the junction of Interstate 35 and Interstate 90, two of the longest Interstate highways in the United States.

The 2020 census counted 18,492 people in Albert Lea, and Census Bureau QuickFacts figures for 2020–2024 count about 7,788 households, averaging about 2.29 persons each.

Myre–Big Island State Park, with oak savanna, wetlands and shoreline on Albert Lea Lake, lies just southeast of the city.

Albert Lea was once an early headquarters site of Cargill, and its Wilson & Company meatpacking plant — later Farmstead and Farmland — was a major employer until it was destroyed by fire in July 2001.