St. Peter was founded in 1853 by Captain William Bigelow Dodd, who claimed 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 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. 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,
Joseph J. Rolette of
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. 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. 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 km) north of St. Peter. The
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. 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
St. Peter State Hospital, and is now called the
St. Peter Regional Treatment Center. On July 1, 1892, the Sontag Brothers,
John Sontag and
George Contant, and their partner,
Chris Evans, tried to rob a train between St. Peter and
Kasota along the Minnesota River. The bandits acquired nothing of value, but their activities came under the review of
Pinkerton detectives, and both were apprehended in June 1893 in what is called the
Battle of Stone Corral in
California.
Governors St. Peter is known as the home of five
governors: • 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) 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
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
intestinal adhesions in
Rochester, Minnesota, on September 21, 1909. Drs.
William James Mayo and
Charles Horace Mayo, who came from
Le Sueur and were friends with Johnson, performed the operation. After lying in state in the
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 Tornado On March 29, 1998, a
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, 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 ==Education==