Your Home You're Home

Chances are, if you’re reading this, you live here or work here or are thinking about living here or working here –– so let us to tell you a little about your home in Pipestone, Minn.

We’re a city with a population of just over 4,000 in the southwest corner of the state. Perched atop the Buffalo Ridge, the winds blow steadily here and the sun shines brightly, drawing wind farms and solar gardens to the agricultural countryside that’s abundant with grazing pasture and cropland.

Flatness and gentle swales mark the countryside, Mother Nature’s perfect stage for our four-season climate. There is nothing like watching summer storms roll across this former tall-grass prairieland, or starting and ending each day with a wide-screen view of sunrises and sunsets. The light pollution is almost nonexistant, with night-time visuals relatively unimpaired. This means you’ll have a backyard seat for an impressive, naked-eye view of the Milky Way.

The local hub for our artistic community is the Pipestone Performing Arts Center. For those who like to remain active, there are numerous parks, multi-use trails, two gyms (one with an indoor pool) and an outdoor Aquatic Center for the summer months. You’ll see kids everywhere, given how safe it is here, either playing in the public spaces or their own neighborhoods full of affordable housing. Like a quiet night out with your significant other, dinner with friends, or don’t feel like cooking tonight? There are numerous restaurants in town that serve everything from fast food to full dining. On Sunday mornings, the churches are active with just about all faiths represented, though Protestant faiths do predominate in keeping with the German, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish people who settled the region.

This is a great place to raise a family. We have innovative schools that offer low teacher/student ratios. And though we think it’s pretty special around here, we’re not the first ones. Thousands of years ago, Native American tribes considered the area sacred. They would gather at the Pipestone quarries to mine the earth for the soft pipestone to craft pipes. That spiritual practice continues today at Pipestone National Monument, a National Park Service site that draws some 70,000 visitors annually.

The Monument provides a point of interest for tourists, as does our Historic Downtown District that provides, with its red stone buildings of native Sioux Quartzite, a perfect backdrop for our businesses; for our community parades, festivals and events, many of them coordinated by our tireless Pipestone Area Chamber of Commerce and Visitor’s Bureau.

We’re pretty self-sufficient around here but from time-to-time, we like a larger regional shopping center, and Sioux Falls, S.D. fits the bill –– it’s only 45 miles south on a state highway. In fact, two state and one federal highway will take you quickly anywhere you want to go. Otherwise, we like to shop local, and can find pretty much everything we need with two grocery stores, several general merchandise stores, two hardware stores, and oodles of specialty stores. You’ll know the people who serve you and you won’t end up with traffic fatigue getting your errands done. In fact, the only time you may be stopped in traffic is if you head out of town during planting or harvest seasons and get behind a slow-moving tractor or two.

Everything you’ll want and need to know about all our cultural and community assets can be found here. So take another look at your home, or discover it for the first time. You just might find you’re home.