Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Montevideo, MN

Montevideo is the county seat and largest city of Chippewa County in west-central Minnesota, sitting in a double river valley where the Chippewa River meets the Minnesota River, about 140 miles west of Minneapolis.

Montevideo was platted on May 25, 1870, incorporated as a village on March 4, 1879, and as a city on June 30, 1908.

The name Montevideo — Latin for 'from the mountain I see,' or 'Mount of Vision' — was chosen by settler Cornelius J. Nelson and borrowed from the capital of Uruguay.

Montevideo's population was 5,398 at the 2020 census, with about 2,274 households in Census Bureau figures for 2020-2024.

Montevideo has one of the oldest sister-city relationships in the United States: since 1905, when the mayors of Montevideo, Minnesota and Montevideo, Uruguay exchanged national flags, the two cities have maintained their bond.

A bronze statue of José Artigas, the father of Uruguayan independence and a gift from the people of Uruguay, stands in Artigas Plaza on Main Street as a symbol of the sister-city relationship.

The sister-city bond is celebrated every year during Montevideo's Fiesta Days festival.

Montevideo won its county seat in a frontier dispute: local men famously seized the county records from rival Chippewa City, and the state later legalized the move.

On the edge of town stands the Camp Release State Monument, a 51-foot granite monument dedicated in 1894 marking where 269 captives were released on September 26, 1862, at the end of the Dakota War; it was the first property added to Minnesota's state park system.

Montevideo preserves its pioneer past at Historic Chippewa City, a recreated historic village near the river confluence.