Biohazard Cleanup Near West Halma Halma, MN

Halma is a small city in Kittson County in Minnesota's far northwestern corner, located along U.S. Highway 59 near the Canadian border.

According to the Federal Writers' Project, Halma's name may be derived from the surname Holm, reflecting the area's Scandinavian settler heritage.

When word came that the Soo Line Railroad would pass through the site, families from the nearby settlement of Beaton moved their buildings to Halma on logs, using a stump puller, men and horses — living and doing business in the back of the Spilde family's store while it was being moved.

In its early decades Halma supported three grocery and mercantile stores, a hardware store, a restaurant, a feed mill, a blacksmith shop, a lumberyard, a bank that closed in the 1930s, and its own newspaper, the Halma Pilot.

Halma's post office began operation in 1904 and remained open for more than a century before closing in 2009.

Halma's population peaked at 177 residents in the 1950 census and has declined since, reaching 58 residents in the 2020 census.

The 2010 census counted 61 people living in 26 households in Halma, spread across an unusually roomy 0.91 square miles for so small a city.