History of Saint Paul, Minnesota

Saint Paul is the second largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, the county seat of Ramsey County, and the state capital of Minnesota. The origin and growth of the city was spurred by the proximity of Fort Snelling, the first major United States military presence in the area, and by its location on the Upper Mississippi River, with the northernmost natural navigable port on the mighty river.

Fort Snelling, originally known as Fort Saint Anthony, was established in 1819, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers in order to establish American dominance of the fur-trading industry on the rivers. As the whiskey trade started to flourish, the military officers in Fort Snelling banned the distillers from the land the fort controlled, with one retired French Canadian fur trader turned bootlegger, Pierre “Pig’s Eye” Parrant particularly irritating the officials. In 1838, Parrant moved his abode and operation downstream about 5 miles (8.0 km) to the north bank of the river in what is now downtown Saint Paul.

There Parrant established the area which became known as “L’Oeil de Cochon” (which is French for “Pig’s Eye”) and the new location began to be settled by French Canadians. An 1837 treaty with the natives secured the city for white settlement.[1] In 1841, the settlement was named Saint-Paul by Father Lucien Galtier, a priest from France, in honor of Paul the Apostle. By the early 1840s the area had become important as a trading center, a stopping point for settlers heading west, and was known regionally as Pig’s Eye or Pig’s Eye Landing.[2][3] The Minnesota Territory was formalized in 1849 with Saint Paul named as its capital. In 1854, Saint Paul incorporated as a city and in 1858, Minnesota was admitted to the union with Saint Paul becoming the capital of the 32nd state.