Living in Faribault, MN

Rice County

Faribault is the Rice County seat, roughly 50 miles south of Minneapolis-St. Paul, founded when fur trader Alexander Faribault established a trading post on the Straight River's east bank in 1835 -- his 1853 house was the first wood-frame house built in Rice County. Faribault carries more buildings on the National Register of Historic Places than any other Minnesota city its size, second only to the state capital, St. Paul -- a real, genuinely distinct historic-downtown identity among this batch's Minnesota markets. Shattuck-St. Mary's School, a private, Episcopal-affiliated boarding school founded in 1858 (grades 6-12, ~391 students), is a real, historic institutional anchor, though its small size doesn't meaningfully shift the city's broader population age. Faribault's home-value figures carry a real, disclosed cross-source and cross-month spread this pass ($282,110-$372,000), and its median effective property tax rate (1.03%, Ownwell) sits essentially at the national median. Major local employers include Jennie-O Turkey Store, the Minnesota Correctional Facility, Daikin, and Faribault Foods -- a real, diversified mix spanning food processing, corrections, manufacturing, and government. Crime data carries a real, disclosed cross-source spread on the exact rate, all reading below the national average, alongside a genuine tension: 55% of surveyed residents felt there was too much crime even as the underlying statistics read comparatively favorable. Faribault Public Schools (ISD #656) serves the city with Faribault Senior High School (~956 students) as its sole public high school. Faribault's median age (38.7) and 65-plus population share (16.3%) both run modestly below the ~18% national comparison figure, and combined with its real, current population growth (+2.85% since 2020), this record uses best-areas rather than retiring as its ninth topic.

Explore Faribault in depth

• Moving to Faribault: Pros, Cons & What to Know
• Cost of Living in Faribault
• Housing in Faribault
• Taxes & Insurance in Faribault
• Climate in Faribault
• Schools & Families in Faribault
• Healthcare & Safety in Faribault
• Pros and Cons of Living in Faribault
• Best Areas to Live in Faribault

Housing

Taxes

The tradeoffs

Who this fits

Best for: Best fits budget-conscious families and history-minded buyers drawn to a genuinely distinct historic downtown and a diversified, working local economy, who confirm current, address-specific pricing and tax rates directly given this record's disclosed cross-source spreads.

Maybe not for you if: Probably not the right fit for movers prioritizing a single, unambiguous crime picture or Minnesota's most affluent household-income profile -- Faribault's own crime data runs genuinely tense between favorable statistics and majority-negative resident perception, and its median household income runs below the national median.