6.2. HRSR 05-28-2002 - Laserfiche WebLink

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• bluffs and marshes.The river divides Sherburne and Wright counties at this point. The townsite of Elk River was platted on the north bank of the Mississippi,downriver from Orono. Historian Warren Upham wrote that Elk River was called the St.Francis River by eighteenth-and nineteenth-century explorers including Carver,Pike,Long and Schoolcraft. Beltrami and Nicollet,he notes,"used a Ojibway name for Elk River,translated as Double river,or by Allen as Parallel river, alluding to its course nearly parallel with the Mississippi.i3 Upham suggests that the herds of elk found in the vicinity by Pike and later explorers and fur traders account for the present name,and both Elk River and Elk Lake appear on the first map of Minnesota Territory published in 1850. This glacial landscape occupies an area of marginal terrain, where woodlands edge prairie. Gravel deposits are common, and the soils are not rich and do not retain moisture well.In general,Sherburne County's soils rank 73`d out of 87 counties in soil productivity.4 Like much of surrounding Sherburne County,the relatively flat,sandy soils of Elk River Township provided good acreage for grazing and crop raising,and particularly potatoes.Early permanent white settlers seeking farmland found a hilly,forested belt in the northern part of the township,while there was level prairie in much of the southeastern corner.Trott and Tibbett's brooks drain the township from east to west;early historians noted that hay meadows gathered along their edges.' There are several small, III shallow lakes,such as Twin Lakes in Section 24 and Eagle Lake in Section 13. Small ponds persisted within the Elk River townsite after settlement.One was located at Jackson and Main streets and another at Minnesota and Main. The steep bluffs,and island and marsh landscape found by early settlers has undergone great transformation. The natural action of erosion and flooding has been greatly accelerated by mill,dam,and road construction as well as agricultural land use. The dam built by Ard Godfrey and John Jameson in 1851 immediately flooded a large portion of Section 32 above the river,a feature now known as Lake Orono.Sedimentation and debris from log booms and saw milling infilled the channels of the Elk and Mississippi over the first decades of settlement. There are several islands in the main channel of the Mississippi at Elk River.The largest,opposite downtown,encompassed about sixty acres in 1900.W.H.Houlton,J.B.Rogers,and Chase and Frye owned three other islands to the west. In 1902,the Davis Island Boom Company diverted the Mississippi River channel around the Chase and Frye Island,but erosion threatened the riverbank.The channel was subsequently restored. Between 1916 and 1978,Lake Orono served as the generator of electricity for the Elk River Power and Light Company.The lake level was lowered in 1978 to preserve the deteriorating • dam. In 1980 the dam was rebuilt. Ice businesses,swimming and boating have also been also enjoyed here.6 Elk River Historic Contexts Study Draft 5/2002 5