History · Apple Valley

Apple Valley’s history is
mostly unwritten

The public archives hold no old photos of Apple Valley. The rest are in attics, shoeboxes and the historical society. Help start the collection.

1860established
0old images & papers
6recent photos

The story

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The area that became Apple Valley was first established in 1859 as Lebanon Township, and remained a farming community for nearly a century. In the mid-1950s, residential developments started replacing farmland. Orrin Thompson, a real estate developer, was responsible for the city's early development. He contracted a company to determine where the next growth in the Twin Cities would be. It was 0.5 miles (1 km) from County Road 42 and Cedar Avenue. Thompson bought the first houses and streets from the Brobacks, who built the city's first four houses. The firm that selected this area was in Apple Valley, California, so Thompson took that name for the development. An alternate explanation for the name change exists, however. According to local developer Henry Broback, Lebanon Township was renamed Apple Valley because "...when you drive east on (County Road) 42 and turn to enter Lebanon, i…

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

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Apple Valley, decade by decade

Before
2000
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Then & now

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Stories next door

nearby towns’ history

From Wikimedia Commons (6). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.

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Apple Valley

Minnesota · MN
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Boundary source: https://tigerweb.geo.census.gov/arcgis/rest/services/TIGERweb/Places_CouSub_ConCity_SubMCD/MapServer/18 · 2025-01-01