Biohazard and Pathogen Disinfection in Newport, MN

Newport grew out of two neighboring settlements on the Mississippi River southeast of Saint Paul — the older village of Red Rock and the Newport townsite, which was platted in 1857.

Red Rock took its name from Eyah Shaw, an unusually large red granite boulder that the Dakota regarded as sacred; the rock now rests on the grounds of Newport United Methodist Church.

In 1839-1840, Methodist missionary Benjamin T. Kavanaugh built a two-story log cabin at Red Rock that served as his home, a church, and a school; preserved today, it is recognized as the oldest Methodist building in Minnesota.

Beginning in 1869, Red Rock hosted Methodist camp meetings that drew enormous crowds — as many as 20,000 people on a single day.

The Newport townsite was named by a party led by James H. Huganin for a hometown in upstate New York, and the original Red Rock settlement was annexed to Newport in 1861.

The two villages finally merged and incorporated as the village of Newport in 1889.

Newport's public library received its municipal charter in 1889, and by 1925 its collection had grown to more than 2,000 books, making the library the cultural center of the community.

Bailey Nurseries, founded in Newport in 1905 by market gardener J. V. Bailey, grew into one of the largest wholesale horticultural operations in the United States.

The 80-acre Bailey School Forest, donated to the city by Gordon Bailey Sr. and designated an official school forest in 1998, doubles as a city park and an outdoor classroom — more than 30,000 South Washington County students visited in its first 13 years.

The 2020 census counted 3,797 residents in Newport, which has remained a small city of under 4,000 people for decades even as other Twin Cities suburbs boomed around it.