The names of places, the names that people give to the land, the rivers,
the towns, and the cities, contain miniature history lessons, stories
wrapped up in a few words. Naming a place is a way of connecting to it
and making it more familar. An important aspect of identity, place names
honor the past, telling who came before us, and they speak to the
future, telling of our hopes and ambitions. And sometimes, they're
simply products of our whimsy.
From Big Bird Lake to Cucumber Island, Big Stone to Wanamingo, Puposky
Township to the Zumbro River, thousands of discoveries await the reader
of Minnesota Place Names: A Geographical Encyclopedia. This classic
book tells the stories behind more than 20,000 names of the towns and
cities, townships and counties, lakes and rivers of the North Star
state.
This comprehensive volume is a browser's delight and a rich reference
for historians, linguists, geographers, folklorists, genealogists, and
those interested in the origin of place names. It includes tales for
such curious place names as Embarrass and Sleepy Eye, Bemidji and
Climax, the Rum River and Man Trap Lake. Did you know that the Rat Root
River was named for the roots that fed muskrats that populated its
banks, or that Winona is the Dakota word for "first-born daughter"?
Published originally in 1920 as the culmination of Warren Upham's
lifetime of collecting Minnesota minutiae, this book is a remarkable
achievement and classic of Minnesota history. For this revised edition,
the staff of the Minnesota Historical Society combed recent literature
and databases to update entries and add new names.
In this handsome new edition, Minnesota Place Names captures much of
the lost lore of familiar places and of towns that have disappeared--and
of the people who made the state what it is today.
