Badger Township is a township in Polk County, Minnesota, United States. It is part of the Grand Forks-ND-MN Metropolitan Statistical Area. Under the United States Public Land Survey System it is a survey township identified as Township 149 North, Range 42 West, Fifth Principal Meridian. The population was 166 at the 2000 census.
Geography
Badger Township is located at the eastern edge of the Red River Valley. The township is located entirely within the drainage of the Clearwater River and its tributaries, which in turn flow into the Red Lake River, the Red River of the North, and on to Hudson Bay. Most of the township is part of the glacial moraine that formed the southeast shore of prehistoric Lake Agassiz. According to the United States Census Bureau, Badger Township has a total area of , of which is land and (1.33%) is water. It is located near geocoordinates 47.73N, 96.03W.
Demographics
Demographic trends
Badger Township is an area undergoing rural depopulation. The highest population shown by United States Census data was 448 in 1900. The population then dipped to 391 in 1910, rose back to 447 in 1920, and fell back to 350 in 1930. The population has been in decline ever since.
Current demographics (2000 Census) As of the census of 2000, there were 166 people, 46 households, and 31 families residing in the township. The population density was . There were 57 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the township was 95.78% White, 3.01% Native American, and 1.20% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.01% of the population.
There were 46 households, out of which 32.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 56.5% were married couples living together, 4.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.6% were non-families. 30.4% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.52 and the average family size was 3.10.
In the township the population was spread out, with 19.3% under the age of 18, 5.4% from 18 to 24, 17.5% from 25 to 44, 13.9% from 45 to 64, and 44.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 52 years. For every 100 females, there were 95.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 94.2 males.
Only 3 of the 166 people in Badger Township in 2000 (1.8%) were foreign born. Of those born in the United States, 95 were born in Minnesota, 52 were born elsewhere in the Midwest, 6 were born in the South, 2 were born in the West and 0 were born in the Northeast.
The median income for a household in the township was $25,625, and the median income for a family was $33,750. Males had a median income of $26,875 versus $25,417 for females. The per capita income for the township was $16,999. About 6.7% of families and 8.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including none of those under the age of eighteen and 6.1% of those 65 or over.
Early demographics (1900 Census)
As of the census of 1900, Badger Township had 448 people in 91 households, a density of 12.44 people per square mile, more than 2½ times as many people as in 2000. The population in 1900 was overwhelmingly Norwegian, with 72 heads of households (79.12%) having been born in Norway, 6 (6.59%) born in Sweden, 4 (4.40%) born in Wisconsin, 3 (3.30%) born in Denmark, 2 (2.20%) born in Minnesota, and 1 (1.10%) in each of Michigan, Illinois and Canada.
One hundred percent (100%) of the population in 1900 was reported as white. One family consisting of four individuals (4.40% of the township population) had a French surname (Dion) and another family from Wisconsin had a likely Yankee surname (Gundy). Other than these, every surname of residents in the township was obviously of Scandinavian origin. Of all residents in the township in 1900, 84 (17.21%) were born in the United States, and 404 (82.79%) were of foreign birth. Not a single resident of Badger Township in 1900 who had been born in the United States was born in a state other than Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, North Dakota or Wisconsin. The vast majority of these were born in Minnesota, most of them children.
A surprising number of those born in the United States but not in Minnesota (11, or 2.25% of the total population) were born in North Dakota, indicating that at least some of the families in Badger Township had initially traveled further west before settling (at least temporarily) in Minnesota. The rest had migrated directly from Scandinavia or from the immediately adjoining states in the Upper Midwest.