Lac qui Parle Village considered for State Capital?

By Russel W. Olson

By Russell W. Olson of Lac qui Parle Village

Martin McLeod was a fur trader and explorer who became the territorial representative for Minnesota in the area known as “Lac qui Parle.” He served from the First Territorial Legislative Session in 1849 through the Fourth Territorial Legislative Session in 1853, acting as presiding officer in 1853. He was very influential as Territorial Representative. As chair of the “Schools” committee, he helped pass highly impactful legislation, including the territorial school code that established public education in Minnesota.

McLeod was so respected and influential that when establishing polling places for the election of a U.S. Representative from the Territory of Minnesota in 1849, the voters of the area voted at Martin McLeod’s residence in Lac qui Parle. As shown in this excerpt from the Journal of the House of Representatives ... Session of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Minnesota.

McLeod traveled extensively throughout the Minnesota Territory, but always returned to his favorite part: the Minnesota River Valley.

In Martin McLeod and the Minnesota Valley, Charles J. Ritchey wrote, “The first four months of 1838 he traveled in Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin. The summer and fall of 1839 he spent at LaPointe, the winter at St. Croix Falls... All that McLeod saw and heard of other regions did not draw him away from the alluring valley of the Minnesota... He shifted from Traverse de Sioux to Big Stone Lake in 1843, and in 1846 to Lac qui Parle, where he remained until he established as his home at Oak Grove, a few miles west of Fort Snelling.”

Regarding the question of Lac qui Parle Village being in contention to be the state capital in 1858, research suggests that the entire area surrounding the mission, including Lac qui Parle Lake, used to generally be considered “Lac qui Parle,” even as far back as the 1830s, when explorers referred to the area. Martin McLeod had a trading post near present-day Lac qui Parle Village. He became our first representative in the Minnesota Territorial Legislature. Because of the location of Lac qui Parle at the time, it would have been in the center (east to west) of the Territory of Minnesota.

McLeod made a proposed amendment to the bill addressing the location of the Minnesota territorial capital. The amendment suggested that the Territorial Capital be located in the Lac qui Parle area. That amendment was never acted upon.

McLeod’s biography states, “The first legislature of the Territory of Minnesota convened on September 3, 1849. The territory of the Minnesota River Valley was represented by Martin McLeod, a native of Canada, and fur trading successor to Joseph Renville. It is rumored that McLeod suggested that the Territorial capital would be centrally located if it were in the area of the Lac Qui Parle Mission. St. Paul was chosen instead.”

Although some history books suggest that Lac qui Parle Village was one of the towns in the running to become the official Minnesota state capital, I have not been able to find any legislative record confirming this. That is primarily because the Village of Lac qui Parle did not exist in 1858 when Minnesota became a state. The homestead on the piece of property that includes what would become Lac qui Parle Village was not granted until 1869. Lac qui Parle Village itself was not incorporated until 1871.

Jon Willand’s Draft of The History of Lac qui Parle Village, quoted from a section describing the “Old Settlers Picnic,” summarizes, “The first reunion on these grounds was held on June 12, 1891. At this reunion Col. John H. Stevens, of Minneapolis, either started or reinforced the local legend that Lac qui Parle (which did not exist as a village) nearly became the state capital. The June 19, 1891, Dawson Sentinel reported that Stevens said, ‘Lac qui Parle was known to the early traders before there was any St. Paul or Minneapolis, and quite a strong move was made to locate the state capital here.’”

Throughout my more than 70 years of living in Lac qui Parle Village, I’ve heard it said time and again that the Village was once in the running to become the state capital of Minnesota. It was even printed in our sixth-grade history book when I attended the local schoolhouse there. But over the years, as I’ve looked more closely into the history, I’ve found no evidence in official records to support that claim. It appears the story has been passed down more as a piece of local folklore than as a matter of historical fact.