BRAINERD, a city of central Minnesota, U.S.A., on the E. bank of the Mississippi river, at an altitude of I , 2oof t., 128m. N.N.W. of Minneapolis; the county seat of Crow Wing county. It is served by the Northern Pacific and the Minnesota and Inter national railways. Population in 193o was 10,221. Brainerd is the metropolis of the Cuyuna iron range, which runs through the city, and of the agricultural population which is displacing the lumber-jacks and hunters of 19oo–Io. The principal in dustries are the railway shops and tie-treating plant of the North ern Pacific, and a pulp and paper mill with a daily capacity of 5o tons of pulp and 45 tons of finished paper.
Within easy driving distance are 700 lakes and many summer resorts. The 47 iron mines, many of which are of the open-pit type, are clustered around the villages of Riverton, Ironton, Crosby, Deerwood, Manganese, Trommald, and Cuyuna, from 12 to 20m. N.E. of Brainerd. From 1906, when iron was discovered here, through 1925, 16,322,974 gross tons were mined. Brainerd was settled in 1870; was named after David Brainerd; and was chartered as a city in 1883.