Homer is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

and

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

(CDP) in Homer Township, Winona County,

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

, United States, on the south bank of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...

. As of the 2010 census, its population was 181.

Geography

The community is located to the immediate southeast of the city of Winona along Highways 61 and 14, near the junction with Winona County Road 15. Pleasant Valley Creek and Homer Creek both flow nearby. Nearby places include Winona, Lamoille, Pickwick, Donehower, Dakota, and Dresbach.

History

Homer was

plat In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Survey System, Public Lands Surveys to ...

ted in 1855, and named after

Homer, New York Homer is a town in Cortland County, New York, United States of America. The population was 6,405 at the 2010 census. The name is from the Greek poet Homer. The town of Homer contains a village called Homer. The town is situated on the west b ...

. The community contained a post office from 1855 until 1965. The Willard Bunnell House, built in the 1850s by Homer's founder, is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

and is managed as a historic house museum.

Transportation

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

’s ''

Empire Builder The ''Empire Builder'' is a daily long-distance passenger train operated by Amtrak between Chicago and either Seattle or Portland via two sections west of Spokane. Introduced in 1929, it was the flagship passenger train of the Great North ...

'', which operates between

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

/ Portland and

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, passes through the town on

BNSF BNSF Railway is the largest freight railroad in the United States. One of six North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 36,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and over 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that provide ...

tracks, but makes no stop. The nearest station is located in Winona, to the west.

References

External links

Historic Bunnell House in Homer

Census-designated places in Minnesota Census-designated places in Winona County, Minnesota Minnesota populated places on the Mississippi River {{WinonaCountyMN-geo-stub