Washington County Takes Shape
Posted by: 
BruceS
N 45° 03.100 W 092° 48.451
15T E 515156 N 4988707
Historical marker giving history of the formation of Washington County.
Waymark Code: WM6M7T
Location: Minnesota, United States
Date Posted: 06/19/2009
Views: 13
Text of marker:
Washington County Takes Shape
When Minnesota Territory's original nine counties were established in 1849, only three--Washington, Ramsey, and Benton--officially opened to settlers. They lay in a triangle of land between the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers that reached north beyond Lake Mille Lacs--land ceded by the Dakota and Ojibwe Indians twelve years earlier.
In 1840 this land became part of St. Croix County in Wisconsin Territory, with Stillwater designated the county seat. When Wisconsin achieved statehood in 1848, its western boundary was sdt at the St. Croix River, leaving Stillwater and the surrounding counties without a government. With the formation of Minnesota Territory ten months later, settlers living west of the St. Croix once again had official status. The legislature adopted the name Washington County after the Nation's first president, and retained Stillwater as the county seat.
Rich stands of pine in the St. Croix valley had drawn settlers as early as 1839, when lumbermen from the New England states began building sawmills at places like Marine Mills and Stillwater. So many other immigrants followed from the northeastern U.S. that Minnesota Territory was soon dubbed "the New England of the West."
Fertile land and abundant resources quickly attracted new waves of immigrants, particularly from Sweden, who began arriving in 1850 to farm the northern part of the county. When the first census of Minnesota Territory was taken that year, Washington County had 1,056 Euro-American and mixed-blood residents, and following St. Paul; Still water was the second largest town in the territory.
As Minnesota's population grew, old county boundaries were redrawn and new counties organized. Washington County eventually retained only a portion of its former area. Today, farms still dot the countryside, though many have given way to Suburban development and sawmills in the bustling river towns have been replaced by manufacturing and tourism.