Editing Lake Park, Minnesota (section)

==History==
The area upon where Lake Park was founded, started to be settled in 1841 by fur traders while a Dakota encampment still existed on Lake Flora on which part of the City Park is now located.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wilcox |first1=Alvin H. |title=A pioneer history of Becker County, Minnesota, including a brief account of its natural history... |date=1907 |publisher=Pioneer Press Company |location=Saint Paul, MN |isbn=978-1149506622 |pages=757 |edition=Second |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/17012304/}}</ref>

The area was originally founded as Liberty Township. In 1871, the Liberty Township Board changed the name to Lake Park Township; for which the name "Lake Park" comes from a Dakota phrase of "Where the Prairies meet the Waters" as the site became a railway stop for the Great Northern Railway by the town founder, James Canfield.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Upham |first1=Warren |title=Minnesota Place Names: A Geographical Encyclopedia |date=2001 |publisher=Minnesota Historical Society Press |location=Saint Paul, Minnesota |isbn=0873513967 |pages=730 |edition=3rd |url=https://shop.mnhs.org/products/minnesota-place-names}}</ref>
 
The city was officially incorporated separate from the township on the along the border of Lake Park and Cuba Townships. It was thenceforth known officially as the Village of Lake Park until the 1970s, when Lake Park was converted by the State of Minnesota into a City of the Fourth Class (Population under 5,000), for which it remains today. For many decades, up until the mid-1980s it was also known as the "[[Lefse]] Capital of the World" for its lefse factories and their high production, but they came to an end due to a national recession and the loss of regular rail freight service stops in the city. Today, the city is small rebounding family community with an excellent school, new small businesses, and expansion for additional housing.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Anderson |first1=Marilyn |last2=Schuleter |first2=Gerry |title=A History of Lake Park |date=1981 |publisher=Journal Publishing Co. |location=Lake Park, Minnesota |pages=339 |edition=1st |url=https://egcatalog.larl.org/eg/opac/record/8362}}</ref>