Apple Valley, Minnesota
city in Dakota County, Minnesota, United States
Apple Valley is a city in northwestern Dakota County, Minnesota, and a suburb of the Twin Cities. The population was 56,374 at the 2020 census, making it the 17th most populous city in Minnesota.
History
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.
“Apple Valley, Minnesota” enters the record as city in Dakota County, Minnesota, United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Apple, Valley and Minnesota can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Apple Valley, Minnesota” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Apple, Valley and Minnesota provides the most credible route into that argument.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q621377. VIAF identifies the subject as 124356697. The Library of Congress control number is n82075800. Authority coordinates are 44.732, -93.218. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020 and 1859.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
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Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Apple Valley, Minnesota”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Apple Valley, Minnesota primary sources, Apple Valley, Minnesota archive and Apple research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Apple Valley, Minnesota” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.