Trails to the Past

Minnesota

Washington County

 

 

 

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Its county seat is Stillwater. The largest city in the county is Woodbury. Washington County was one of the nine original counties created when the Minnesota Territory was organized in 1849. The county was officially established October 27, 1849, named after George Washington.

Early development in the area was on the St. Croix River, which now forms the boundary with Wisconsin on the county's eastern side. The river not only provided a means of transportation to move people upstream, but also move logs downstream. The area was heavily forested and the early economy was dependent on the logging and lumber industries.
The first settlement and seat was named Dacotah, and was located as early as 1838 in what is now northern Stillwater, where Brown's Creek flows into the St. Croix River. The creek's name is from the founder of this settlement, Joseph Renshaw Brown. However, a sawmill was built at Marine-on-St.-Croix in 1839, and another was built in the current location of downtown Stillwater in 1844. The success of these soon attracted the settlers from Dacotah, and Stillwater became the county seat in 1846.

During this early period, the region was part of the Wisconsin Territory, but Wisconsin became a state in 1848. Brown and other leaders called together settlers in this now-ungoverned territory to what has become known as the "Stillwater Convention" on August 26, 1848. Held in John McKusick’s store, the settlers drafted a Memorial to Congress that a new territory be created with the name “Minnesota,” and elected Henry Hastings Sibley to deliver this citizen’s petition to the U.S. Congress. Because of this convention, Stillwater calls itself the “Birthplace of Minnesota.” After officially becoming a territory, growth continued, with the first Sheriff of Washington County appointed by Governor Alexander Ramsey in 1849, and the county's school district founded in 1850.

On Line Data

Cities
Afton
Bayport
Birchwood Village
Cottage Grove
Dellwood
Forest Lake
Grant
Hastings
Hugo
Lake Elmo
Lake St. Croix Beach
Lakeland Shores
Lakeland
Landfall
Mahtomedi
Marine on St. Croix
Newport
Oak Park Heights
Oakdale
Pine Springs
Scandia
St. Marys Point
St. Paul Park
Stillwater (county seat)
Willernie
White Bear Lake
Woodbury
Unincorporated communities
Arcola
Basswood Grove
Carnelian Junction
Maple Island
Siegel
Ghost towns
Garen
Point Douglas

Townships
Baytown
Denmark
Grey Cloud Island
May
Stillwater
West Lakeland

 

 

Adjacent counties
Chisago County (north)
Polk County, Wisconsin (northeast)
St. Croix County, Wisconsin (east)
Pierce County, Wisconsin (southeast)
Dakota County (southwest)
Ramsey County (west)
Anoka County (northwest)

 

Washington County Courthouse

 

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