Baxter is a city in Crow Wing County, Minnesota, United States.

Baxter is just north of Minnesota's geographical center, in a terminal moraine area created by the Superior Lobe of the Labradorian ice sheet.

The Mississippi River marks the southern border but expansion both north and south is possible.

[5] Baxter owes its existence partly to the 1920s operation of a (since closed) large tie-treating plant, owned by Northern Pacific Railroad.

The town is named after Luther Baxter,[6] an attorney for the railroad who served in the Minnesota Legislature and as a colonel in the Civil War.

Tourism and various service industries have become Baxter's biggest employers, and numerous housing subdivisions have been developed in the wooded area west of Minnesota Highway 371, which passes through the town.

Owing to the amount of unused land in the area, commercial development along the highway itself has also increased in recent years, though it has tended to conform to the pattern of urban sprawl.

The Burlington Northern (Brainerd/Baxter) United States Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site is on the boundary between Brainerd and Baxter.

During that time, wastewater generated from the wood-treating process was sent to two shallow, unlined ponds.

This created a sludge that contaminated both the underlying soils and the groundwater with creosote and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).