It is located in a major agriculture area because of the rich soil left by ancient Glacial Lake Agassiz.

The Great Northern and the Soo Line railroads brought prosperity when Thief River Falls became a center for shipping wheat.

Thief River Falls (and surrounding region) has been home to major industry including snowmobiles, farm machinery, and global electronics distribution.

Thief River Falls is home to the electronic parts distributor Digi-Key, one of the largest employers in the area, and was the birthplace of the vaunted Steiger Tractor, produced from 1958 to the late 1980s.

Thief River Falls was home to the headquarters of the Cycle Detection Warning System up until its shutdown on April 13, 2009.

The Minnesota Northwestern Electric Railway, an electric-powered passenger train, ran from Thief River Falls to Goodridge between 1914 and 1940.

On Tuesday, August 21, 2007, the Empress Express (Canadian Pacific 2816) spent the night in front of the historic Soo Line depot in Thief River Falls.

Thief River Falls Radio reported that the classic steam engine was built in 1930, and the 45 ticketed passengers were to leave for Glenwood, Minnesota, on Wednesday morning.

Arctic Cat purchased several boat manufacturers including Spirit Marine which produced the first Wetbike in 1978.

After designing and building the tractors on their farm for six years, the brothers opened a production facility in Fargo, North Dakota.

Thief River Falls is also home to Northland Community and Technical College, which also has a campus in East Grand Forks, Minnesota.

It houses an inpatient and outpatient mental health unit, encompasses a free-standing 15-bed group home for mentally ill persons and a free-standing 10-bed treatment center for emotionally disturbed children, has doctors on site in the Emergency Room 24/7, and is the only hospital in the community of Thief River Falls, Minnesota.

Local Fox affiliate KVRR-TV operates a semi-satellite licensed to Thief River Falls, KBRR-TV (channel 10), serving Grand Forks.

The city's Chamber of Commerce holds an annual "Crazy Dayz", which is a "bargain day" of sorts on LaBree.

The Pennington County Historical Society, which was organized in the 1930s, is responsible for maintaining the Peder Engelstad Pioneer Village.

Peder Engelstad Pioneer Village, named after a local Norwegian immigrant, consists of 19 buildings with over 25,000 individual items on display.

Since 2016, the city has been home to the Thief River Falls Norskies, which plays in the Canadian-based Superior International Junior Hockey League.

Thief River Falls, along with Grand Forks, North Dakota, hosted the 2005 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships between December 25, 2004, and January 4, 2005.

The Ralph Engelstad Arena hosted the Thief River Falls games, one of which was broadcast on sports network, ESPN.

The celebrated American playwright Lee Blessing’s work, Thief River, premiered in 2000 at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut.

It subsequently ran Off-Broadway in New York in June 2001 to mixed reviews, and later had a longer run in San Francisco.

It is the story of Gil and Ray, who at age 17 were secret lovers in what one reviewer called "a small homophobic Minnesota town in the '40s"—presumably Thief River Falls.

As stated by another reviewer, "The play attempted to show what it would be like to be a gay man in a small town in the late '40s, when two men kissing would have been a revolutionary act.

"[15] The play most recently ran in Chicago in early 2007, where it was called "the definitive work capturing the homosexual experience in the rural American Midwest over the last 50 years.".

[16] The specific Minnesota connection of the play is unstated, but playwright Blessing grew up in the Twin Cities area and attended Minnetonka High School before leaving for Reed College in Oregon in the late 1960s.