Stearns County, Minnesota facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Stearns County
U.S. county
Stearns County Courthouse
Location within the U.S. state of Minnesota
Minnesota's location within the U.S.
Country	United States
State	Minnesota
Founded	February 20, 1855
Named for	Charles Thomas Stearns
Seat	St. Cloud
Largest city	St. Cloud
Area
• Total	1,390 sq mi (3,600 km2)
• Land	1,343 sq mi (3,480 km2)
• Water	47 sq mi (120 km2)  3.4%%
Population  (2020)
• Total	158,292
• Estimate  (2023)	160,977
• Density	113.9/sq mi (43.97/km2)
Time zone	UTC−6 (Central)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−5 (CDT)
Congressional districts	6th, 7th

Stearns County is a county in the U.S. state of Minnesota. As of the 2020 census, the population was 158,292. Its county seat and largest city is St. Cloud.

Included within the Minnesota Territory since 1849, the county was founded by European Americans in 1855. It was originally named for Isaac Ingalls Stevens, then renamed for Charles Thomas Stearns. Stearns County is part of the St. Cloud Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Combined Statistical Area.

History

The Stearns County area was formerly occupied by numerous indigenous tribes, such as the Sioux (Dakota), Chippewa (Ojibwe) and Winnebago (Ho-chunk). The first large immigration was of German Catholics in the 1850s. Early arrivals also came from eastern states. The Wisconsin Territory was established by the federal government effective July 3, 1836, and existed until its eastern portion was granted statehood (as Wisconsin) in 1848.

The federal government set up the Minnesota Territory effective March 3, 1849. The newly organized territorial legislature created nine counties across the territory in October of that year. The original counties had portions partitioned off in 1851 to create Cass County and in 1853 to create Sibley, Pierce, and Nicollet counties. In 1855 parts of those counties were partitioned off to create Stearns County. It was to be named Stevens County for territorial governor Isaac Ingalls Stevens, who had conducted an expedition through the area in 1853, but due to a clerical error, the county was named Stearns for Charles Thomas Stearns, a member of the Territorial Council. (To compensate for this error the area two counties west was later named Stevens County.)

The February 20, 1855, act that created the county directed the naming of three county commissioners and specified St. Cloud as the county seat.

Writing in 1997, Jewish-American historian of America's religious architecture Marilyn J. Chiat commented, "Father Francis X. Pierz, a missionary to Indians in central Minnesota, published a series of articles in 1851 in German Catholic newspapers advocating Catholic settlement in central Minnesota. Large numbers of immigrants, mainly German, but also Slovenian and Polish, responded. Over 20 parishes where formed in what is now Stearns County, each centered on a church-oriented hamlet. As the farmers prospered, the small frame churches were replaced by more substantial buildings of brick or stone such as St. Mary, Help of Christians, a Gothic Revival stone structure built in 1873. Stearns County retains in its German character and is still home to one of the largest rural Catholic populations in Anglo-America."

Furthermore, according to Kathleen Neils Conzen, "Stearns County Germans early established daughter settlements at West Union in Todd County, Millerville in Douglas County, and Pierz in Morrison County, later flooded into North Dakota (where 'Stearns County German' remains a recognized ethnicity today), and in 1905 negotiated with the Canadian authorities to establish the St. Peter Colony in north-central Saskatchewan."

The first courthouse was put into service on July 12, 1864, and it remained in use until the present courthouse was dedicated in 1922. In 1913 a campaign was mounted to shift the county seat to Albany, due to its more central location. The effort was not successful.

Stearns County was also founded off of farmers' markets and crop trades, making it one of the top grossing crop producing counties in the state of Minnesota.

Geography

Soils of Padua area

Soils of St. John's University area

Stearns County borders nine counties. The Mississippi River flows southeast along its northeast border, and the Sauk River drains the central part of the county into the Mississippi at St. Cloud. The county terrain consists of low rolling hills, lightly wooded, dotted with lakes and ponds, and carved with drainages. All available area is devoted to agriculture or has been developed. The terrain slopes to the east and south, with its highest point a local protuberance at 7.6 miles (12.2 km) west and 1.6 miles (2.6 km) south of St. Joseph, at 1,461 ft (445 m) ASL. The county's total area is 1,390 square miles (3,600 km²), of which 1,343 square miles (3,480 km²) is land and 47 square miles (120 km²) (3.4%) is water.

The northeastern border of Stearns County is formed by the Mississippi River. The land consists of rolling hills, scenic lakes, prairies, savannas and woodlands of a mixture of coniferous and deciduous trees. Stearns is one of 17 Minnesota savanna region counties with more savanna soils than either prairie or forest soils. The county has 166 lakes.

Major highways

Airports

Source:

• Brooten Municipal Airport (6D1) - east of Brooten
• Paynesville Municipal Airport (PEX) - west of Paynesville
• Sauk Centre Municipal Airport (D39) - south-southeast of Sauk Centre
• St. Cloud Regional Airport (STC) - east-southeast of St. Cloud

Adjacent counties

Protected areas

Sources:

Lakes and streams

Demographics

2020 census

Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race.

Communities

Cities

Census-designated place

• Fairhaven
• St. John's University

Unincorporated communities

Townships

See also

In Spanish: Condado de Stearns para niños