Home » Minnesota » Worthington

James W. Loewen (1942-2021)

We mourn the loss of our friend and colleague and remain committed to the work he began.

Worthington

Minnesota

Basic Information

Type of Place
Independent City or Town
Metro Area
Politics c. 1860?
Don’t Know
Unions, Organized Labor?
Don’t Know

Sundown Town Status

Sundown Town in the Past?
Possible
Was there an ordinance?
Don't Know
Sign?
Don’t Know
Year of Greatest Interest
Still Sundown?
We Have Data on How it Changed

Census Information

The available census data from 1860 to the present
Total White Black Asian Native Hispanic Other BHshld
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940 5918 0
1950
1960 9015 0
1970 9825 61
1980
1990 9,977 9,347 44 15
2000 11,283 8,667 215 83
2010 12764 698 91 1104
2020

Method of Exclusion

  • Unknown

Main Ethnic Group(s)

  • Unknown

Group(s) Excluded

  • Black
  • Asian

Comments

“In Worthington, Armour built a meatpacking plant in the 1960s and had an agreement with the meatpacking union, which Horowitz studied, to transfer workers there from other plants. Some
transfers were going to be black, and the union sent a black and white pair door-to-door to prepare Worthington for this, locating places that would rent
to them, etc. It was successful. Now Worthington has lots of Hmong people.”
-former resident, 2002

“To move workers who are displaced from their jobs in one community to new jobs far away always raises complex problems of adjustment. There was every reason to anticipate that these problems would be
especially severe when Armour & Co. closed an outmoded packinghouse in Kansas City two years ago and moved forty-one Negro workers, with their families, to an all-white town in Minnesota, Worthington.”
-“Planning for Change”. New York Times 26 November 1966. (1 pp.)

According to a Minnesotan, based on the recent increase of minorities and a strong Hispanic presence, smaller neighboring towns now refer to Worthington as “the ghetto.”