Editing Cloquet, Minnesota (section)

==History==
[[File:CON-WED PLANT AT CLOQUET, MINNESOTA., DISCHARGES "WHITE WATER" INTO A SIDE CHANNEL OF THE ST. LOUIS RIVER. CON-WED... - NARA - 551569.jpg|thumb|right|Former Con-Wed plant (now a [[USG Corporation]] facility) in Cloquet, 1973]]
Cloquet began as a group of small settlements around three sawmills: Shaw Town, Nelson Town, and Johnson Town. These became known as Knife Falls after a local waterfall over sharp [[slate]] rocks, and later as Cloquet. The [[Ojibwe people|Ojibwe]] in the area called the area {{Lang|oj-latn|Mookomaan-onigamiing}}, meaning 'At the Knife Portage', as the portage to avoid Knife Falls connected the three communities. The area was [[plat]]ted in 1883 and the village of Cloquet was incorporated from the three settlements in 1884. It became a city with a mayor and city council in 1904. The word ''Cloquet'' first appeared on an 1843 map of the area by [[Joseph N. Nicollet]], which named the [[Cloquet River]], a tributary of the [[Saint Louis River (Lake Superior tributary)|Saint Louis River]], and the Cloquet Rapids to the north. ''Cloquet'' is a French surname, but historians have found no source for it. Some speculate that the river was named for the 19th-century French scientists [[Hippolyte Cloquet|Hippolyte]] and [[Jules Germain Cloquet|Jules]] Cloquet, and the settlement named for the river.<ref>
* {{cite book |last=O'Meara |first=Walter |title=We Made It Through the Winter: A Memoir of Northern Minnesota Boyhood |url=https://archive.org/details/wemadeitthroughw0000omea |url-access=registration |year=1974 |publisher=Minnesota Historical Society |location=St. Paul |pages=2; 115|isbn=9780873510929 }}
* {{cite book |last=Carroll |first=Francis M. |title=Crossroads in Time: A History of Carlton County, Minnesota |year=1987 |publisher=The Carlton County Historical Society |location=Cloquet, Minnesota |pages=203–5}}
* {{cite book |last1=Luukkonen |first1=Larry |last2=Wisuri |first2=Marlene |title=A Hometown Album: Cloquet's Centennial Story |year=2004 |publisher=Carlton County Historical Society |location=Cloquet, Minnesota |pages=16–18}}</ref>

The area was the site of the 1918 [[Cloquet fire]], which destroyed much of the town and killed 453 people.

Before and after [[World War II]] Cloquet was home of the nation's strongest [[Consumers' co-operative|consumers' cooperatives]]. The Cloquet Cooperative Society (founded in 1910) operated two cooperative stores, which handled food, hardware, shoes, dry goods, and furniture. Other [[cooperative]] services included a building supply store, a coal yard, a mortuary, an auto repair shop and a gas service station.

In 1939, the co-op did 35% of the business in the town, and 18% in Carlton County. By the mid-1950s, the consumer society had a membership of 4,262 out of a population of 8,500. This was a national record, given that the total business of all American co-ops combined represented only 0.5% of the economy. The Finnish cooperative groups of the area also had an influence on the American cooperative movement in general.

In the 1970s the area of the city was increased to over ten times what it had been in 1970. Despite this, the population of the city still declined from 1970 to 1980, even as the number of separate residences increased.<ref>[http://www.lakesnwoods.com/Cloquet.htm Guide of Cloquet, Minnesota]</ref>

===Architecture===
Cloquet is home to the [[R.W. Lindholm Service Station]], the only [[filling station]] designed by architect [[Frank Lloyd Wright]] and a structure now on the [[National Register of Historic Places]].