Olmsted County Origins

 

This county, established February 20, 1855, was named in honor of David Olmsted, first mayor of St. Paul, in 1854, who in 1855 removed to Winona, in the county of that name, adjoining Olmsted county. He was born in Fairfax, Vt, May 5, 1822; came to the Northwest, first to the Wisconsin lead mining region, in 1838; was a pioneer settler of Monona, Iowa, in 1840; engaged in trading with the Indians at Fort Atkinson, Iowa, in 1844; was a member of the convention which framed the state constitution of Iowa, in 1846; came in 1848 to

Long Prairie, Minn., when the Winnebago Indians were transferred there, and established a trading post which he continued several years. He was a charter member of the Minnesota Historical Society, and a member of the council of the first territorial legislature, 1849 and 1850, being its first president. In 1853, having removed to St. Paul, he became proprietor and editor of the Minnesota Democrat, which under his management began its issue as a daily newspaper in May, 1854. After his removal to Winona, ill health compelled him, in 1857, to give up business, and he then returned to his old home in Vermont, where he died February 2, 1861.

Another prominent citizen of this name, but of another family, with slightly different spelling, for whom, however, some have supposed this county to be named, was S. Baldwin Olmstead, a farmer and contractor, of Belle Prairie and Fort Ripley, who was a member of the territorial council in 1854 and 1855, when this county was created, having been president of the council in the former year. He was born in Otsego county, N. Y., in 1810; came to the Northwest in early manhood, and resided in Iowa and Minnesota; was engaged with government contracts about Fort Ripley for a time; removed to Texas at the close of the civil war, and settled on a farm in Burnett county, where he died, January 27, 1878.

 

Source:

MINNESOTA GEOGRAPHIC NAMES Their Origin and Historic Significance
by Warren Upham, Archaeologist of the Society
Published by the Minnesota Historical Society
Saint Paul, 1920

 

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