Barron is the county seat of Barron County, a city of about 3,700 an hour north of Eau Claire: up Highway 53, then five miles west on Highway 8. County government is here, the Jennie-O plant is here, and the industrial park sits next to the municipal airport with rail service and four- to eight-acre lots ready to build.
The biggest employer in the county is in this town. Jennie-O's Barron plant, part of Hormel, has 1,800 people, and in 2024 it stopped harvesting turkeys and became a further-processing plant, with modernization money going into the building. The county's Government Center on East Monroe Avenue, the Justice Center on Highway 25 north of town and the Highway Department on North 7th Street are all here, and Mayo Clinic Health System's Northland hospital is in town.
The city puts its count at more than 200 businesses and industries. The lots that matter for pavement are the plant's, the county's, the hospital's, the high school's on East Woodland Avenue, and the industrial park's, with the rail spur and the airport next door.
Where the lots are in Barron
- Barron Industrial Park
- Highway 8 through town
- Highway 25 North
Around Barron:
Barron County Government Center on East Monroe Avenue, Barron County Justice Center on Highway 25, The Jennie-O plant, Barron High School, Kiwanis Park on the Yellow River.
3,674 people, 2024 Census estimate.
Silty glacial till, outwash sand and pockets of organic soil are all normal ground in this corner of the state, and a lot can cross more than one of them.