Barnum, Minnesota.
Typical home $297,131 (+5.3% in a year). Duluth, MN-WI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$910 (+140%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $14,898 +5%
- $282,233$297,131 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $75,847 +34%
- $221,284$297,131 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Barnum$1,560
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Barnum, MN rose 5.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Barnum, Carlton County, Minnesota
Barnum is a city of 620 people in Carlton County. 55% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 45% are rented. Unemployment in Carlton County was 5.2% in August 2026, and the county had 1.2% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Barnum is a small city in Carlton County, Minnesota, with a population that is small even by the standards of the region. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and a good share of residents live below the poverty line, more than you might expect given that household incomes across the county run fairly high. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and temperatures often well below freezing, while July is warm and summers are pleasant. Precipitation comes as both rain and melted snow through the year.
Work. Residents of Barnum work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in manufacturing, government, and restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Unemployment across Carlton County is higher than it was a year ago, and the county has fewer jobs than the year before. Among the county's largest workplaces are MSOP Moose Lake, USG and Carlton County itself. A typical commute is a short one, and some people work from home.
Things to do. Hanging Horn Lake sits in or beside town, close at hand for time by the water. A short drive away are Moose Lake State Park and the Portage River. For a longer outing, Jay Cooke State Park is a protected area a longer drive away.
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- 242households
- 20%of adults have a degree
- 18%below the poverty line
- 23 mintypical commute
- 11%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Carlton County had 13,111 jobs in 2025, 1.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 20° and lows near 1°; warmest in July, with highs near 80° and lows near 57°. About 32 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Moose Lake Sse weather station, 6 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Carlton County
- MSOP Moose LakeMental health facilities, residential415
- USGCeiling tile405
- Carlton CountyExecutive and legislative office combinations370
- Cloquet Public School DistrictSchool district370FTE
- Community Memorial HospitalCritical access hospital343FTE
- Upper Lakes Foods CLPrivate warehousing and storage, refrigerated272
- Inter-Faith Care CenterNursing homes140
- Essentia Health Moose LakeCritical access hospital134FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 45 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 4,577 people in all across the county; Barnum has one of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- Cold wavesVery high
- LightningRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Barnum’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Carlton County and the Duluth, MN-WI metro.
Barnum home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Barnum$297,131
- Minnesota$348,778
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Barnum12
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Barnum6
Zip codes with a Barnum address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Barnum — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.