Biohazard and Pathogen Disinfection in Floodwood, MN

Floodwood bills itself as the "Catfish Capital of the World," a nickname the city gave itself when it launched its annual Catfish Days festival, and its motto is "A City for All Seasons."

Floodwood grew up where the East Savanna River meets the St. Louis River, beside the historic Savanna Portage fur-trade route — Europeans were passing the site as early as 1679 on their way between Lake Superior and the Mississippi River watershed.

Large-scale logging came to Floodwood in 1890 under J. C. Campbell, and the C. N. Nelson Lumber Company, later absorbed into what became the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, drove the young town's growth.

Floodwood's local government was first organized in 1893, when its first school was built out of logs, and the community was incorporated as a city in 1899.

Floodwood counted 224 people in the 1900 census and more than doubled to 481 by 1910; its school became Independent School District No. 19 in 1911 and is today Independent School District 698.

Floodwood survived the devastating 1918 Cloquet Fire that destroyed many neighboring communities, but its era of large-scale timber operations ended by 1926 and the economy turned to dairy farming, anchored for decades by the Floodwood Creamery Cooperative founded in 1911.

The 2020 census counted 517 people in Floodwood, and the 2010 census counted 528 people in 257 households.

Three rivers — the Floodwood River, the East Savanna River and the St. Louis River — meet at Floodwood, and Savanna Portage State Park and the Savanna State Forest lie nearby.

Floodwood sits at the junction of U.S. Highway 2 and Minnesota State Highway 73, about 46 miles northwest of Duluth and roughly halfway between Duluth and Grand Rapids.

Floodwood's coldest recorded temperature is minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit, set on January 20, 1996, and its hottest is 99 degrees, recorded in July 1988.