Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Fosston, MN

Fosston is a city in Polk County in northwestern Minnesota whose motto is "Where The Prairie Meets The Pines."

The first white settlers reached the Fosston area by covered wagon in 1876, and the town was named for Louis Foss, an immigrant from Sogn og Fjordane, Norway, who moved his store and opened a post office there.

Fosston's townsite was selected, surveyed, and platted in 1884 by W. J. Hilligoss, and the city's incorporation papers were recorded in 1889.

Fosston had a population of 1,434 at the 2020 census, living in about 620 households, and it is part of the Greater Grand Forks region.

Fosston was a busy depot on the Great Northern Railway, and four-lane U.S. Highway 2 is still the main route through the city today.

Fosston is the home of Cordwood Pete, a local legend promoted by longtime mayor Arvid Clementson about the supposed younger brother of Paul Bunyan — a lumberjack only 4 feet 9 inches tall whose growth was stunted, the story goes, because Paul ate all the flapjacks.

According to the Cordwood Pete tale, Pete once borrowed Paul Bunyan's double-bladed ax and accidentally felled 100 acres of timber in a single swing before the railroad hired him to clear its right-of-way.

Fosston's boys' basketball team won the first-ever Minnesota state basketball championship in 1913.

Fosston's girls' basketball team set a Minnesota record by winning 78 consecutive games between 1999 and 2002.

Fosston has a genuinely continental climate — weather records kept since 1909 include a record high of 109 degrees and a record low of minus 54 degrees Fahrenheit.