Editing St. Peter, Minnesota (section)

==History==
[[File:Bird's Eye view, St. Peter, Minnesota - DPLA - d3eac16e66f34c6a3213ff176ceff131 (cropped).jpg|alt=Bird's Eye view map of St. Peter, Minnesota, drawn in 1870.|thumb|Bird's Eye view, St. Peter, Minnesota, 1870.]]
St. Peter was founded in 1853 by Captain William Bigelow Dodd, who claimed {{cvt|150|acre|km2}} north of what is now Broadway Avenue. He named the new settlement Rock Bend because of the rock formation at the bend of the [[Minnesota River]]. Daniel L. Turpin platted and surveyed the town site in 1854. In 1855, a group of St. Paul businessmen interested in promoting the town formed the Saint Peter Company, and the town was renamed St. Peter. The president of the company was [[Willis Gorman|Willis A. Gorman]], Territorial Governor of Minnesota. Many of St. Peter's streets were named after streets in New York City, including Park Row, Chatham, Broadway, Nassau, and Union. Dodd was originally from Bloomfield, New Jersey. His second wife, Harriett Newell Jones, a native of [[Cabot, Vermont]], was living in New York at the time of their marriage at the Church of the Holy Communion in New York City, which helped fund the church in St. Peter that shares its name.

St. Peter was located along the [[Minnesota River]], a major tributary of the Mississippi River, and flowed down a wide valley carved by the [[Glacial River Warren]], when it emptied [[Lake Agassiz]]. One mile north of where St. Peter was founded, was [[Traverse des Sioux]], a trading site used by native Americans from before contact, that later became a major transhipment point for the fur trade, bringing furs from the [[Red River Valley]] and the watershed of [[Lake Winnipeg]] into the [[Mississippi River]] Valley. [[Traverse des Sioux]] had been a trading area and a ford over the Minnesota River that had been used by native Americans before the contact period. During the era of steamships, was the farthest up river that larger steam ships could operate. 

The Two Fingers band of Sioux from St Peter's made news in 1855.<ref>Frontier Indians, Weekly National Intelligencer, April 8, 1854, Image 6, Chronicling American, 2024, Library of Congress [https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045784/1854-04-08/ed-1/seq-6/#date1=1850&sort=relevance&rows=20&words=Peters+Sioux+St&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=0&state=&date2=1862&proxtext=St+Peters+Sioux&y=13&x=13&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=3]</ref>
[[File:2009-0805-MN-StPeter-BroadwayBridge.jpg|thumb|right|The [[Broadway Bridge (St. Peter)|Broadway Bridge]] connects St. Peter to the east via Minnesota State Highway 99]]
In 1857, an attempt was made to move the Territory of Minnesota's capital from St. Paul to St. Peter. Gorman owned the land on which the bill's sponsors wanted to build the new capitol building, and at one point had been heard saying, "If the capitol remains in Saint Paul, the territory is worth millions, and I have nothing." At the time, St. Peter, in the territory's central region, was seen as more accessible to far-flung territorial legislators than St. Paul, which was in the extreme east of the territory, on the east bank of the [[Mississippi River]]. A bill passed both houses of the Territorial Legislature and was awaiting Gorman's signature. The chairman of the Territorial Council's Enrolled Bills Committee, [[Joe Rolette|Joseph J. Rolette]] of [[Pembina, North Dakota|Pembina]], took the bill and hid in a St. Paul hotel, drinking and playing cards with some friends as the city police looked fruitlessly for him, until the end of the legislative session, too late for the bill to be signed.{{Citation needed|date=July 2010}} Rolette came into the chamber just as the session ended. Today, St. Paul is the state's second-largest city (after neighboring [[Minneapolis]]), while St. Peter is a relatively small rural town.

[[File:2009-0805-MN-ChurchofHolyCommunion.jpg|thumb|right|The [[Church of the Holy Communion (St. Peter, Minnesota)|Church of the Holy Communion]] is one of several St. Peter structures on the [[National Register of Historic Places]].]]
In 1851 the [[Treaty of Traverse des Sioux]] was signed between the [[Sioux]] (Dakota) and the U.S. Government one mile (1.6&nbsp;km) north of St. Peter. The [[Nicollet County, Minnesota|Nicollet County]] Historical Society-Treaty Site History Center is near the site of the signing. But the treaty's promises were not kept. The Dakota became angered and the [[Dakota War of 1862]] began in Cottonwood County. In August 1862 the Dakota attacked the German settlement of [[New Ulm, Minnesota|New Ulm]]. A company of volunteers from St. Peter, headed by Dodd, St. Peter's founder, went to New Ulm's defense. Dodd was killed on August 23, 1862, and briefly buried in New Ulm. On November 11, 1862, Dodd was buried with high military honors in St. Peter on the grounds of the Church of the Holy Communion, Episcopal, on land he donated to the church. Dodd, his wife Harriet and two children are buried behind the present stone church built in 1869–70 at 118 North Minnesota Avenue.

In 1866, the legislature established the first "Minnesota Asylum for the Insane" in St. Peter. It was later known as the [[Minnesota Security Hospital|St. Peter State Hospital]], and is now called the [[Minnesota Security Hospital|St. Peter Regional Treatment]] Center.

On July 1, 1892, the Sontag Brothers, [[John Sontag]] and [[George Contant]], and their partner, [[Christopher Evans (outlaw)|Chris Evans]], tried to rob a train between St. Peter and [[Kasota, Minnesota|Kasota]] along the Minnesota River. The bandits acquired nothing of value, but their activities came under the review of [[Allan Pinkerton|Pinkerton detective]]s, and both were apprehended in June 1893 in what is called the [[Battle of Stone Corral]] in [[California]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.mnriv.com/sontag.html |title=The Sontag Brothers: Southern Minnesota's Own Train Robbers |publisher=mnriv.com |access-date=November 28, 2012 |archive-date=February 12, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120212031411/http://www.mnriv.com/sontag.html |url-status=live}}</ref>

===Governors===
St. Peter is known as the home of five [[governor]]s:
* Territorial
** [[Willis Arnold Gorman]] (1853–1857)
* State
** [[Henry Adoniram Swift]] (1863–1864)
** [[Horace Austin]] (1870–1874)
** [[Andrew Ryan McGill]] (1887–1889)
** [[John Albert Johnson]] (1905–1909)

[[File:2009-0805-MN-StPeter-JohnsonHouse.jpg|thumb|right|The [[John A. Johnson House]] is listed on the NRHP.]]

The best-known of these, Johnson, was born in St. Peter to Swedish-born parents on July 28, 1861. Because of family circumstances, he offered to help his mother raise the family. He left school at a young age and held a variety of jobs. In 1887, he was hired as editor of the ''St. Peter Herald'', the local newspaper. In 1899, he was elected to the [[Minnesota Senate|State Senate]], and served until 1903. In 1904, he was elected Minnesota's 16th governor. He was reelected in 1906 and 1908. He was considered as a possible candidate in the 1912 presidential election, but died as the result of an operation for [[Intestine|intestinal]] [[Adhesion (medicine)|adhesions]] in [[Rochester, Minnesota]], on September 21, 1909. Drs. [[William James Mayo]] and [[Charles Horace Mayo]], who came from [[Le Sueur, Minnesota|Le Sueur]] and were friends with Johnson, performed the operation. After lying in state in the [[Minnesota Capitol|Capitol]] rotunda, his body was taken to St. Peter for burial. The funeral, held at Union Presbyterian Church, was St. Peter's largest ever, and he was buried near his parents in Greenhill Cemetery. He was survived by his wife, Elinore "Nora" Preston Johnson.

===List of mayors of St. Peter, Minnesota===
{| class="wikitable"
! # !! Mayor<ref>{{cite web|title=Mayors and Postmasters of St. Peter, Minnesota |url=https://politicalgraveyard.com/geo/MN/ofc/saintpeter.html |website=www.PoliticalGraveyard.com |publisher=[[The Political Graveyard]] |access-date=February 25, 2025}}</ref>
! Term 
|-
| 1 || Eugene St. Julien Cox (also served in the state legislature and as a district court judge)
| 1865–1867
|-
| 2 || Francis E. Lange
| 1868–1869
|-
| 3 || William Schimmell (First president of First National Bank)
| 1870–1872
|-
| 4 || Albert Knight (Knight Street is named after him)
| 1873–1875
|-
| 5 || Addison L. Sackett (also served as county auditor and in the state legislature)
| 1876–1878
|-
| 6 || Azro A. Stone (also served as county sheriff; Stones' Way and Stones' Park are named after him)
| 1879
|-
| 7 || Philip Dick, Sr.
| 1880–1882
|-
| 8 || Gustav W. Steinke
| 1883–1884
|-
| 9 || [[Gideon S. Ives]] (son-in-law of Governor [[Henry Adoniram Swift]]; served as lieutenant governor 1891–1893)
| 1885
|-
| 10 || Joseph A. Mason
| 1886–1888
|-
| 11 || Philip Dick, Sr. (second term as mayor)
| 1889–1893
|-
| 12 || Henry Moll (also served as a probate judge)
| 1894–1895
|-
| 13 || Dr. Lewis M. Erickson
| 1896–1898
|-
| 14 || Melville G. Hanscome
| 1899–1900
|-
| 15 || William H. Mueller
| 1901–1905
|-
| 16 || William H. Rounseville
| 1906
|-
| 17 || Philip Dick, Sr. (third term as mayor)
| 1907–1909
|-
| 18 || Edward Bornemann
| 1910–1912
|-
| 19 || Philip E. Dick, Jr.
| 1913–1914
|-
| 20 || Edward Bornemann
| 1915
|-
| 21 || Adolph Bornemann
| 1916–1917
|-
| 22 || William Haesecke
| 1918–1920
|-
| 23 || Lillien M. (Cox) Gault-Wolfe (first woman mayor in Minnesota, daughter of former mayor E. St. Julien Cox)
| 1921–1922
|-
| 24 || Edward Woehler
| 1921–1930
|-
| 25 || Dr. Arthur H. Bittner (Died in Office on January 15, 1933)
| 1931–1933
|-
| 26 || Floyd B. Johnson (athletic field at St. Peter Middle School (formerly St. Peter Middle/High School) is named after him)
| 1933–1935
|-
| 27 || Otto T. Miller
| 1936–1937
|-
| 28 || Reuben R. Seibert
| 1938–1940
|-
| 29 || Otto T. Miller
| 1941–1942
|-
| 30 || Henry B. Seitzer
| 1942–1943
|-
| 31 || Andrew Cook (Died in office on October 17, 1944)
| 1944
|-
| 32 || John R. Faust
| 1944–1946
|-
| 33 || Henry E. Wiest
| 1946
|-
| 34 || Clifford J. Nutter
| 1947–1948
|-
| 35 || Elmer J. Kleifgen
| 1949–1951
|-
| 36 || Prof. George W. Anderson (English professor at Gustavus Adolphus College)
| 1951–1952
|-
| 37 || Richard Konechne
| 1953–1956
|-
| 38 || Leighton R. Swenson
| 1957–1958
|-
| 39 || Mark W. Schaus
| 1959–1960
|-
| 40 || George W. Martens
| 1960–1961
|-
| 41 || Arthur W. Cook
| 1962–1963
|-
| 42 || Lamar Hay
| 1964–1965
|-
| 43 || George W. Martens
| 1966–1970
|-
| 44 || Douglas C. Pyan
| 1971–1985
|-
| 45 || William A. Wettergren
| 1986–1989
|-
| 46 || Peter J. Rheaume
| 1990–1991
|-
| 47 || Ellery O. Peterson
| 1992–1995
|-
| 48 || Jerry K. Hawbaker
| 1996–2005
|-
| 49 || Timothy J. Strand (Elected unopposed on November 8, 2011)
| 2006–2015
|-
| 50 || Chuck Zieman
| 2016–2021
|-
| 51 || Shanon Nowell (Administrator at Gustavus Adolphus College)
| 2022–''present''
|}

===Tornado===
On March 29, 1998, a [[1998 Comfrey – St. Peter tornado outbreak|tornado struck St. Peter]], killing six-year-old Dustin Schneider, injuring dozens more, and damaging much of the town's housing, commercial, and civic buildings. The tornado destroyed 156 single-family houses and 51 apartment units. An additional 362 houses and apartments suffered serious damage and 1,383 houses or apartments had minor damage. The town's three trailer parks were largely spared with no mobile homes destroyed and just two seriously damaged. Major losses included the Old Central School, St. Peter Arts and Heritage Center, St. Peter's Catholic Church, St. Peter Evangelical Lutheran Church, and Johnson Hall at Gustavus Adolphus College.

===Churches===
* Bethany Alliance Church (Christian & Missionary Alliance), established in 1961, present church built in 1965, church renamed Living Truth Fellowship in 2015
* Calvary Baptist Church, established in 1963, present church built in 1977
* Church of St. Peter (Roman Catholic), established in 1856, present church built in 2001
* Church of the Holy Communion (Episcopal), established in 1854, present church built in 1869–1870
* First Lutheran Church (ELCA), established in 1857, present church built in 1965
* Good Samaritan United Methodist Church, established in 2010, no church at present time
* Sunrise Assembly of God, Established in 1934, present church built in 1988
* St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Church (WELS), established in 1867, present church built in 1999
* River of Life Lutheran Church (LCMS), established in 2013 by Our Savior's Lutheran Church of Mankato, member of the [[Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod]] since 2016
* Trinity Lutheran Church (ELCA), established in 1892, present church built in 1988
* [[Union Presbyterian Church (St. Peter, Minnesota)|Union Presbyterian Church]], established in 1869 as a result of the union of two congregations (the First Free Presbyterian Church of Traverse des Sioux Established in 1853 and the First Presbyterian Church of St. Peter in 1857), present church built in 1871
* Christ Chapel (ELCA), built from 1959 to 1961, inaugurated in 1962 on the campus of [[Gustavus Adolphus College]]