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History of Winona County, Minnesota
Submitted by John Bauer
Winona County was officially established with its present boundaries on February
23, 1854, three years after Minnesota Territory was opened to settlement. Prior to that time this area was at first
part of Wabasha County and later Fillmore County under the Minnesota territorial government. After Minnesota achieved
statehood in 1858 the county government was established with the election of supervisors in that year and the county
board was formed in 1860.
The territorial government, organized in 1849, created nine counties for the Minnesota territory. Only three of
them were completely organized as counties, the rest served for the distribution of judicial and administrative
officials as needed.
Wabasha County which contained the area which was to be the future Winona County was bounded by the Mississippi
River on the east, the Missouri River on the west the Iowa state line to the south, and on the North the latitude
drawn from the mouth of the St. Croix River over to the mouth of the Yellow Medicine River This huge administrative
area included all of southern Minnesota and the southeastern portion of what would be South Dakota.
In 1853 Fillmore County was created which included most of present Winona County. The creation of this new district
was unsatisfactory to Winonans because the western area of the county was sparsely settled, most of the population
in 1853 was in Wabasha's prairie and the area adjacent to it including Minnesota City and Minneowah. There were
a few early settlers in the hinterland of Wabasha's prairie but they were widely dispersed. A few settlers had
established a trading post as far west as St. Charles. Even though the first county meeting was held in Winona
all the members of the county board were stockholders in the Chatfield Land Company which was involved in a scheme
to acquire the county seat for a townsite they controlled on the western border of Fillmore County. T. B. Twitford
from Lansing Iowa discovered and laid out the site for Chatfield. In order to advance his town he formed a stock
company to make Chatfield the county seat for Fillmore County. The stock of the company was divided among twelve
stock holders, among them were Robert Pike, Jr. of Minnesota City and Willard B. Bunnell of Minneowah.
Source: Winona County Historical Society.
Website: http://www.winonahistory.org/
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