Buying Land in Big Stone County, Minnesota

Zoning: agricultural-district country with real subdivision and shoreland controls

Big Stone County's Environmental Services department (20 2nd St. SE, Ortonville) administers the county's Land and Related Resources Management Ordinance and its Subdivision Controls Ordinance, the two tools implementing the county's Comprehensive Plan (last revised in 2002). The county's zoning districts run from A-1 and A-2 Agricultural through Open Space, Urban Residential, Commercial, and Industrial classifications, plus a dedicated Shoreland Management Zone that the county coordinates on with the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources, consistent with the statewide framework covered on our Minnesota page. The County Planning Commission reviews conditional use permits, proposed subdivisions, and zoning-classification amendments. This is a functioning, real zoning apparatus for unincorporated land -- but it stops at city limits: Ortonville and Big Stone County's other incorporated municipalities each run their own separate zoning, utilities, and permitting, entirely apart from the county.

Farmland, Big Stone Lake, and the county's agricultural economy

Agriculture is Big Stone County's dominant land use and economic base. The county's own history page describes farming as "the lifeblood of the area," citing roughly 400 farms countywide -- about 15 dairy operations, 25 raising hogs, and 35 running beef-cattle herds -- alongside a dominant corn-and-soybean row-crop base, with wheat and alfalfa as secondary crops. The USDA's 2017 Census of Agriculture put dollar figures on that base: $138.75 million in total market value of agricultural products sold countywide, with crop sales ($106.97 million) far outweighing livestock sales, and 47% of the farms the census counted (205 of them) reporting annual sales of $100,000 or more. That same census shows real size polarization underway -- about 19% of the county's farms already run 1,000 acres or more, while roughly a quarter fall in the 50-179 acre range -- a mix of large-scale commercial row-crop operations and smaller family and livestock operations. For a buyer, the practical takeaway is that land listed for sale in Big Stone County is overwhelmingly likely to be active, already-farmed acreage rather than vacant ground: confirming the current operator, any cash-rent or crop-share lease in place, and existing farm-program enrollment (USDA base acres, CRP contracts, and similar) is a standard and distinct piece of due diligence here, separate from the zoning and WCA questions covered above.

The county's northwest corner also fronts Big Stone Lake, a roughly 12,610-acre natural lake straddling the Minnesota-South Dakota border that serves as the headwater source of the Minnesota River, which runs some 332 miles southeast to join the Mississippi River at St. Paul. Land near the lake carries a different profile than the county's row-crop interior: Big Stone Lake State Park sits on the Minnesota shore, and the Big Stone National Wildlife Refuge -- a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuge split between Big Stone and Lac qui Parle counties -- holds roughly 1,028 of its approximately 11,586 total acres inside Big Stone County itself, with the bulk of the refuge actually across the county line in Lac qui Parle County. A parcel near the county's northeast edge can therefore adjoin federal refuge land rather than only private farmland, which is worth confirming with Environmental Services or the refuge office before assuming a boundary. More broadly, the Minnesota River Headwaters watershed the county sits within is heavily agricultural -- an estimated 80% of the watershed's land area is in row crops or pasture, and about 87% of it is privately owned -- which is why the Big Stone Soil and Water Conservation District (the same SWCD that sits on the county's Wetland Conservation Act technical panel, discussed above) also runs voluntary conservation-practice programs -- windbreaks, grassed waterways, terraces, and sediment basins -- available to landowners farming ground that drains toward the lake and the river's headwaters.

Wetlands and a live wind-and-transmission buildout

The county's own Environmental Office is the Wetland Conservation Act local government unit for Big Stone County, reachable through the same Environmental Services department that handles zoning; the Big Stone Soil and Water Conservation District supports that process on the Technical Evaluation Panel but does not itself hold LGU authority here.

The most distinctive current feature of Big Stone County land use is energy infrastructure. The county adopted its own Wind Power Management Ordinance in December 2006, and Nova Clean Energy's Valhalla Energy Center -- a roughly 250 MW wind project spanning Big Stone and Stevens counties -- marked its ribbon-cutting in July 2025. Alongside that, the Big Stone South-to-Alexandria 345 kV transmission line has now cleared both its certificate of need (October 2024) and its actual Route Permit (June 2026), putting it into active right-of-way negotiation with landowners along the approved path. See our dedicated wind and energy-transmission leasing page for the easement mechanics, one-time payment structure, and construction timeline -- both projects mean real, ongoing siting and easement activity is actively reshaping parts of the county, not a settled backdrop.