Minnesota State Highway 65 (Central Avenue) serves as a main route, running on the town's eastern edge.

The majority of the town's residents live in the 263 mobile homes, across four trailer parks, that sit within the city's borders.

[6] According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 0.12 square miles (0.31 km2), all land.

Columbia Heights turned down their request, so Johnson circulated a petition to have the residents vote on incorporation.

By 1959, tensions rose to the point where the Metropolitan Municipalities Commission, a predecessor of the Twin Cities-wide Metropolitan Council, asked the then-State Attorney General Walter Mondale to contest the Hilltop charter to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

[6] Hilltop's first mayor was William Wychor, who instituted ordinances prohibiting activities such as "fortune tellers and other such like imposters"; "a person known to be a pickpocket, thief, burglar, yeggman, or confidence man and having no visible or lawful means of support"; and anyone "procuring or attempting to solicit money or any other thing of value by falsely pretending and representing himself to be blind, deaf, dumb, without arms or legs, or to be otherwise physically deficient".

Media in Columbia Heights began insinuating that Hilltop's liquor licenses were illegal, but were unable to provide evidence.

Tension between the rival cities began to abate in 1968, when Hilltop mayor Vivian Caesar and Columbia Heights mayor Bruce Nawrocki met alongside their respective city councils to discuss mutual issues.

The city's police department closed in 1972, when one of its officers drove the town's only squad car into a tree and ruined their only source of transportation.

Due to the town's small size and the fascination with the trailer park stereotype, what were sometimes smaller incidents caused major headlines in the media of the area.

In 1970, then-mayor George Reiter attempted to replace the female village clerk because he believed men were temperamentally better suited for the position, a view held by many of his supporters in the city.

In 1976, there was a triple homicide in the city, perpetrated by Edwin Clay Hull and Ronald D. Gilbert – both received life sentences.

[9][10] In 1980, three prison escapees were captured hiding out in the trailer of one of their mothers; and in 1987, there was a murder-suicide involving a brother and sister.

[11] With an annual budget of only $250,000 at the time, the crisis nearly drove the city to bankruptcy and jeopardized its police protection agreement with Columbia Heights.