St. Cloud, Minnesota

What is now the St. Cloud area was occupied by various indigenous peoples for thousands of years. Voyageurs and coureurs des bois from New France first encountered the Ojibwe and Dakota through the highly profitable North American fur trade with local Native American peoples.^[13][14]

The Minnesota Territory was organized in 1849. The St. Cloud area opened up to homesteading^[15] after the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux was signed with the Dakota people in 1851.^[16] John L. Wilson, a Yankee homesteader from Columbia, Maine, with French Huguenot ancestry and an interest in Napoleon, named the settlement St. Cloud after Saint-Cloud, the Paris suburb where Napoleon had his favorite palace.^[17][18]

St. Cloud was a waystation on the Middle and Woods branches of the Red River Trails used by Métis traders between the Canada–U.S. border at Pembina, North Dakota, and Saint Paul, Minnesota. The cart trains often consisted of hundreds of oxcarts known as Red River carts. The Métis, bringing furs to trade for supplies to take back to their rural settlements, camped west of the city and crossed the Mississippi in St. Cloud or just to the north in Sauk Rapids.

The City of St. Cloud was incorporated in 1856. It developed from three distinct settlements, known as Upper Town, Middle Town, and Lower Town, that European-American settlers established starting in 1853.^[19] Remnants of the deep ravines that separated the three are still visible today. Middle Town was settled primarily by German Catholic immigrants and migrants from eastern states, who were recruited to the region by Father Francis Xavier Pierz, a Catholic priest who also ministered as a missionary to Native Americans.

Lower Town was founded by settlers from the Northern Tier of New England and the mid-Atlantic states, including former residents of upstate New York.^[20] Its Protestant settlers opposed slavery.^[21] Upper Town, or Arcadia, was plotted by General Sylvanus Lowry, a slaveholder and trader from Kentucky who brought slaves with him, although Minnesota was organized as a free territory.^[22] He served on the territorial council from 1852 to 1853 and was elected president of the newly formed town council in 1856, serving for one year (the office of mayor did not yet exist).^[23][22][24]

Jane Grey Swisshelm, an abolitionist newspaper editor who had migrated from Pittsburgh, repeatedly attacked Lowry in print. At one point Lowry organized a "Committee of Vigilance" that broke into Swisshelm's newspaper office and removed her press, throwing it into the Mississippi River. Lowry started a rival paper, The Union.^[24] In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott that slaves could not file freedom suits and found the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, so the territory's prohibition against slavery became unenforceable. Nearly all Southerners left the St. Cloud area when the Civil War broke out, taking their slaves with them. The number of slaves in the community was estimated in single digits at the 1860 census.^[24][25] Lowry died in the city in 1865.^[26]

Many young men from St. Cloud and the surrounding area served in the Union Army during the American Civil War.^[27] After it ended, many local Civil War veterans remained heavily involved in St. Cloud's chapter of the Grand Army of the Republic, and raised money for the building of a statue in memory of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln that still stands near the St. Germain Street bridge.^[28] Beginning in 1864, Stephen Miller served a two-year term as Minnesota governor, the only citizen of St. Cloud ever to hold the office. Miller was a "Pennsylvania German businessman", lawyer, writer, active abolitionist, and personal friend of Alexander Ramsey. He was on the state's Republican electoral ticket with Lincoln in 1860.^[29]

Steamboats regularly docked at St. Cloud as part of the fur trade and other commerce, although river levels were not reliable. This ended with the construction of the Coon Rapids Dam in 1912–14. Granite quarries have operated in the area since the 1880s, giving St. Cloud its nickname, "The Granite City". In 1917, Samuel Pandolfo started the Pan Motor Company in St. Cloud. He claimed his Pan-Cars would make St. Cloud the new Detroit, but the company failed at a time when resources were directed toward the World War I effort. He was later convicted and imprisoned for attempting to defraud investors.^[30][31]

According to documents at the Stearns History Museum, more than 2,000 residents from the heavily German-American St. Cloud area served in the U.S. military against their ancestral homeland during World War I.^[32] On 26 January 1918, President Woodrow Wilson wrote a letter to Bishop Joseph Francis Busch thanking him for his support of the war effort.^[33]

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 41.08 square miles (106.40 km²); 40.04 square miles (103.70 km²) is land and 1.04 square miles (2.69 km²) is water.^[34]

The city developed on both sides of the Mississippi River. Part of the Sauk River runs along its northern edge.

Just south of downtown is the 7-acre, 35-feet-deep Lake George.^[35] In 2021, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) credited decade-long city investments in stormwater filtration with reducing Lake George's phosphorus levels well below the state standard. It called Lake George one of three "success stories" in the state, and planned to remove it from a list of impaired waters.^[36]

Granite bedrock quarried in the area has been estimated to be 1.7 billion years old and was exposed after several miles of rock above it eroded. The city lies on a band of modern Mississippi river sediment surrounded by land scoured several times by Wisconsin Age glaciers beginning about 35,000 years ago, ending with the Lake Superior St. Croix lobe. The later Des Moines lobe created glacial moraines and drift south and east of the city.^[37]

Climate

St. Cloud lies in the warm summer humid continental climate zone (Köppen climate classification: Dfb), with warm summers and cold winters with moderate to heavy snowfall. The monthly normal daily mean temperature ranges from 11.6 °F (−11.3 °C) in January to 70.3 °F (21.3 °C) in July. The record high temperature is 107 °F (42 °C). The record low temperature is −43 °F (−42 °C).^[38]

More information Climate data for , Minnesota (1991–2020 normals, extremes 1894–present), Month ...

Climate data for St. Cloud Regional Airport, Minnesota (1991–2020 normals,[39] extremes 1894–present)
Month	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Record high °F (°C)	56 (13)	59 (15)	81 (27)	96 (36)	105 (41)	102 (39)	107 (42)	105 (41)	106 (41)	90 (32)	76 (24)	63 (17)	107 (42)
Mean maximum °F (°C)	41.9 (5.5)	45.1 (7.3)	61.0 (16.1)	78.1 (25.6)	88.3 (31.3)	92.4 (33.6)	92.6 (33.7)	90.8 (32.7)	87.2 (30.7)	79.3 (26.3)	59.9 (15.5)	44.4 (6.9)	95.1 (35.1)
Mean daily maximum °F (°C)	20.7 (−6.3)	25.7 (−3.5)	38.5 (3.6)	54.3 (12.4)	67.8 (19.9)	77.2 (25.1)	81.6 (27.6)	79.2 (26.2)	71.0 (21.7)	55.9 (13.3)	39.3 (4.1)	25.8 (−3.4)	53.1 (11.7)
Daily mean °F (°C)	11.8 (−11.2)	16.1 (−8.8)	29.2 (−1.6)	43.3 (6.3)	56.2 (13.4)	66.0 (18.9)	70.3 (21.3)	67.7 (19.8)	59.5 (15.3)	45.7 (7.6)	30.9 (−0.6)	17.8 (−7.9)	42.9 (6.1)
Mean daily minimum °F (°C)	2.9 (−16.2)	6.5 (−14.2)	19.8 (−6.8)	32.4 (0.2)	44.6 (7.0)	54.8 (12.7)	58.9 (14.9)	56.3 (13.5)	48.0 (8.9)	35.5 (1.9)	22.6 (−5.2)	9.8 (−12.3)	32.7 (0.4)
Mean minimum °F (°C)	−22.5 (−30.3)	−16.2 (−26.8)	−5.0 (−20.6)	16.7 (−8.5)	30.1 (−1.1)	41.3 (5.2)	47.4 (8.6)	44.3 (6.8)	31.1 (−0.5)	19.6 (−6.9)	3.2 (−16.0)	−14.8 (−26.0)	−25.1 (−31.7)
Record low °F (°C)	−43 (−42)	−40 (−40)	−32 (−36)	−3 (−19)	18 (−8)	32 (0)	40 (4)	33 (1)	18 (−8)	5 (−15)	−23 (−31)	−41 (−41)	−43 (−42)
Average precipitation inches (mm)	0.67 (17)	0.76 (19)	1.57 (40)	2.61 (66)	3.66 (93)	3.75 (95)	3.60 (91)	4.00 (102)	3.01 (76)	2.61 (66)	1.37 (35)	0.88 (22)	28.49 (724)
Average snowfall inches (cm)	8.8 (22)	8.9 (23)	8.2 (21)	4.7 (12)	0.1 (0.25)	0.0 (0.0)	0.0 (0.0)	0.0 (0.0)	0.0 (0.0)	1.0 (2.5)	6.9 (18)	9.3 (24)	47.9 (122)
Average precipitation days (≥ 0.01 in)	7.8	6.4	8.3	9.7	11.4	12.3	10.6	9.3	10.0	9.7	7.3	7.7	110.5
Average snowy days (≥ 0.1 in)	8.5	6.4	5.0	2.2	0.2	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.9	4.6	8.2	36.0
Average relative humidity (%)	70.0	66.1	67.3	65.8	62.0	67.3	67.7	69.5	73.5	68.3	73.3	75.2	68.8
Average dew point °F (°C)	−0.9 (−18.3)	4.6 (−15.2)	17.4 (−8.1)	30.6 (−0.8)	40.5 (4.7)	52.0 (11.1)	59.2 (15.1)	56.7 (13.7)	48.4 (9.1)	36.1 (2.3)	23.0 (−5.0)	12.7 (−10.7)	31.7 (−0.2)
Source: NOAA (relative humidity and dew point 1961–1990)[38][40][41]

Close

St. Cloud has been a significant destination for immigrants throughout its history, beginning with German settlers in the late 19th century, followed by waves of Polish, Irish, and other European immigrants in the early 20th century. Since the late 20th and early 21st century, new residents of the city have predominantly been from Africa, particularly Somalia.^[43] Unofficial estimates suggest that the number of Somalis in St. Cloud and the surrounding cities could be as high as 25,000, with approximately half of these having moved to the city between 2009 and 2013. About 15% of the local school district is Somali and many Somalis are enrolled in high schools, colleges, and universities as of 2023. Homeownership among St. Cloud's Somali community is considerably lower than other populations.^[44][45]

Over the past two decades, the racial and ethnic landscape of St. Cloud has experienced significant changes. In the year 2000, the population was predominantly White. By 2020, the population had dropped to 67% White. The Black or African American demographic saw a substantial increase from 2% in 2000 to nearly 20% in 2020, marking the most significant growth among all groups. Other racial groups such as Asian Americans have maintained a stable presence. The Hispanic or Latino population nearly tripled in size.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of May 2020 the annual mean wage for 99,600 employees across all occupations in St. Cloud was $50,800. The median hourly wage was $24.42.^[46]

According to the 2024 City of St. Cloud Economic Development Authority Employment Report, the city's top employers are:^[51]

St. Cloud Hospital, part of CentraCare Health, was founded in 1886 as St. Benedict's Hospital. The regional health system also includes six Critical Access hospitals, Rice Memorial Hospital in Willmar, and numerous outreach and outpatient clinics and services.

Retail options in St. Cloud include Midtown Square Mall, which features more than 50 tenants, and Crossroads Center, a larger shopping complex with over 100 stores and services.

St. Cloud is home to a variety of notable sites and institutions that reflect its cultural and recreational significance. The St. Cloud Area Convention and Visitors Bureau promotes an area events calendar, dining and lodging information. The city-owned St. Cloud River's Edge Convention Center hosts a variety of events including regional conferences, consumer/trade shows, small group meetings and social events.^{[citation needed]}

The Cathedral of Saint Mary is the largest church in the area. Constructed in the 1920s in the Italian Romanesque style, it serves as the mother church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saint Cloud. The St. Cloud Commercial Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. St. Cloud is a Preserve America Community.^[52] The Paramount Theatre and Visual Arts Center, a restored 706-seat venue built in 1921, serves as a focal point for performing and visual arts in the region.^[53]

The Great River Regional Library serves a six-county area and 32 communities. This expansive system houses nearly one million items—including books, CDs, and DVDs—and provides 250 public computers.^[54] It also hosts a wide array of public programs and events. The Stearns History Museum, accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, offers two floors of exhibits, a research area, a museum store, and is situated within a 100-acre nature park.^{[citation needed]} Munsinger Gardens and Clemens Gardens features extensive floral displays that date back to the 1930s.^[55] The Minnesota Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame is dedicated to preserving and celebrating the state's history in amateur baseball.^{[citation needed]}

The city is home to:

• the St. Cloud State University Division I ice hockey teams. Men's Husky Hockey competes in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference. Women's Husky Hockey competes in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association. The men's team has made nine NCAA Men's Ice Hockey Championship appearances, notably advancing to the 2021 championship game in Pittsburgh, Penn.^[56] The 2012–13 team's co-captain and fifth-year forward, Drew LeBlanc, was named WCHA Player of the Year and earned numerous national honors, including the Hobey Baker Award, the most prestigious award in men's college hockey.^[57] The 2013 team also earned a share of the WCHA league title and its symbol, the century-old MacNaughton Cup.^[58] The Huskies play in the 5,763-seat Herb Brooks National Hockey Center, which underwent a $18 million renovation and expansion in 2012–13.^[59]
• the St. Cloud Norsemen, a Tier II junior hockey team at the Municipal Athletic Complex.
• the Granite City Lumberjacks, a Tier III junior hockey team in nearby Sauk Rapids.
• the St. Cloud Rox (formerly the River Bats) of the Northwoods League, a collegiate summer baseball league. The Rox play at Joe Faber Field in St. Cloud and were founded in 2012.
• the Saint Cloud Area Roller Dolls, a flat-track roller derby league founded in 2011.^[60]
• the Saint Cloud River Runners club, who put on the Lake Wobegon Trail Marathon, an annual event in central Minnesota. The race is used as a Boston-qualifying event for runners who want a straight, quiet, scenic, mostly flat route in the early spring.^[61]
• the Granite City FC is a minor league soccer team founded in 2016. It currently plays in the United Premier Soccer League (UPSL).

The city maintains 95 parks, totaling more than 1,400 acres (5.7 km²) and ranging in size from 80 acres (0.32 km²) "neighborhood and mini parks" to 243 acres (0.98 km²). The largest developed park, Whitney Memorial Park, is the former location of the city airport. It features a recreation center for senior citizens, a dog park, and numerous softball, baseball, and soccer fields.

Since 2025, St. Cloud's mayor has been Jake Anderson.^[62] The Minnesota Correctional Facility – St. Cloud, built in 1889, houses nearly 1,000 prisoners.

St. Cloud has been moved by congressional redistricting to a wide variety of Minnesota regions, including northern, south central, northwest and southwest. In Congressional district maps in effect since 2003, it has been grouped with rural areas and suburbs north and west of the Twin Cities.^[63] The district had only minor changes in a 2022 map drawn by a five-judge panel based on the 2020 census.^[64][65] As of the 2020 census, the city of St. Cloud is the second largest in Minnesota's 6th congressional district, represented by Republican Tom Emmer. The St. Cloud, Minnesota metropolitan area that includes adjacent communities has about a quarter of the 6th district population, though some of the area lies outside the district.

The city makes up the majority of the population of Minnesota State Senate District 14, which straddles the Mississippi River and includes parts of three counties,^[66][67] represented by Aric Putnam. Minnesota House District 14A includes generally western parts of the city as well as Waite Park, St. Augusta and adjacent rural areas,^[68] represented by Bernie Perryman. District 14B includes east central and northeast St. Cloud, neighboring Sauk Rapids and parts of rural Benton and Sherburne Counties,^[69] represented by Dan Wolgamott.

In 2016, St. Cloud converted from 5% to 80% renewable energy by using solar gardens, street light improvements, bio-gas, and other energy efficiency initiatives.^[70][71] St. Cloud's wastewater plant converts sugar-laden liquids from local food and beer manufacturers into fuel and fertilizer. Since 2020, the city has produced more energy than it consumes.^[72]

Almost all of St. Cloud, including the portions in Stearns and Sherburne Counties,^[77][78] and much the portion in Benton County, is in the St. Cloud Public School District. Part of the Benton County portion is in the Sauk Rapids-Rice Public Schools district.^[79]

The St. Cloud Area School District serves St. Cloud, St. Augusta, Clearwater, Waite Park, St. Joseph, Haven Township, and parts of Sauk Rapids.^{[citation needed]} It has eight elementary schools, a new K-8 school in St. Joseph, and two major public high schools, St. Cloud Technical High School and St. Cloud Apollo High School.^[80] St. Cloud also has a major private high school, Cathedral High School. Both public high schools offer a broad selection of Advanced Placement courses and rank high in the state in the number of AP tests taken and of test takers.^[81] St. Cloud Tech opened in 1917 across from a city park and Lake George. In 2019, it moved to a new 69-acre, $104 million facility on the southwest edge of the city. The historic 1917 building has been acquired for use by city government. Apollo opened in 1970 and serves the expanding north side of the city. Other high schools and secondary schools that serve St. Cloud include St. Robert Bellarmine's Academy, St. Cloud Christian School, Immaculate Conception Academy, St. John's Preparatory School, St. Cloud Alternative Learning Center, and the charter school STRIDE Academy,^[82] which is K-8. The nearby cities of Sauk Rapids and Sartell also have their own school districts and high schools, bringing the number of public high schools in the metropolitan area to four.^{[citation needed]}

The main newspaper is the St. Cloud Times, a Gannett daily newspaper. In the early 2020s, Gannett severely downsized the paper, eliminating most local news reporting.^[85]

St. Cloud is part of the Twin Cities television market. One full-power station, the Ion-owned KPXM-TV (channel 41), is licensed to the city, but moved its transmitter to the Twin Cities in 2009 as part of the digital transition, and maintains no presence in the city. WCMN-LD (channel 13) is a low-power station licensed to St. Cloud that broadcasts in ATSC 3.0. Additionally, St. Cloud State University students operate cable-only UTVS (channel 180), which includes local news and broadcasts from a studio on campus.^[86]

Radio stations include:

St. Cloud is a regional transportation hub within Minnesota. Major roadways including Interstate 94, U.S. Highway 10, and Minnesota State Highways 15 and 23 pass through the city.^[87]

Bus service within the city and to neighboring Sartell, Sauk Rapids, and Waite Park is offered through St. Cloud Metro Bus, which was recognized in 2007 as the best transit system of its size in North America. An innovative system gives transit buses a slight advantage at stoplights in order to improve efficiency and on-time performance.^[88] The Metro Bus Transit Center in the downtown area is also shared with Jefferson Lines, providing national bus service.

Bus service links downtown St. Cloud and St. Cloud State University with the western terminus of the Northstar Commuter Rail line in Big Lake, by the way of Northstar Link Commuter Bus, which in turn links to the Metro Transit bus and light rail system at Target Field Station in downtown Minneapolis.

Several rail lines run through the city, which is a stop on Amtrak's Empire Builder passenger rail line.

St. Cloud is home to St. Cloud Regional Airport, from which daily connecting flights to Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport were made on Delta Connection, operated by Mesaba Airlines, until January 1, 2010, when the service was discontinued. On December 15, 2012, Allegiant Air began nonstop flights between St. Cloud Regional Airport and Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, on Airbus 319 aircraft.^[89]

• Halima Aden, model and first Somali-American to compete for Miss Minnesota
• Mathew Ahmann, civil rights activist
• George Annas, Boston University Professor and Director of the Center for Health Law, Ethics & Human Rights
• Raymond H. Bares, Minnesota state senator and educator
• Tom Burgmeier, Major League Baseball player; grew up in St. Cloud and attended Cathedral High School^[90]
• Loren W. Collins, Minnesota jurist and legislator; mayor of St. Cloud
• David Durenberger, U.S. senator from Minnesota
• Jim Eisenreich, MLB player
• Janice Ettle, middle-distance and long-distance runner
• Jim Fahnhorst, NFL player
• Keith Fahnhorst, NFL player
• Howard M. Fish, retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general, former assistant vice chief of staff of Air Force
• Charles A. Gilman, ninth lieutenant governor of Minnesota
• Janey Gohl, 1978 Miss Minnesota USA
• Lawrence M. Hall, longest-serving Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives
• Keith F. Hughes, Minnesota state senator and lawyer
• Jack I. Kleinbaum, businessman, St. Cloud City Council member, and Minnesota state legislator
• Dave Kleis, mayor of St. Cloud
• Jim Knoblach, Republican member of the Minnesota House of Representatives
• Franklin J. Knoll, Minnesota state legislator, lawyer, and judge
• June Marlowe, actress notable for playing Miss Crabtree in short-film series Our Gang
• John McMartin, film, television and stage actor
• Stephen Miller, abolitionist, Civil War veteran, Republican politician, fourth governor of Minnesota
• Edgar G. Mills, Wisconsin state assemblyman and senator
• William P. Murphy, associate justice of Minnesota Supreme Court
• Jim Pehler, Minnesota state legislator
• Tom Petters, former CEO and chair of Petters Group Worldwide^[91]
• Reynold Philipsek, gypsy jazz guitarist
• Dewey H. Reed, educator and politician
• Michael Sauer, NHL player
• Anne Schleper, women's hockey Olympic silver medalist, 2014^[92]
• Nate Schmidt, NHL player
• Stephen Sommers, film director, alumnus of Cathedral High School and St. John's University
• Charles Thomas Stearns, politician
• Jane Swisshelm, newspaper owner, editor and abolitionist
• Gene Waldorf, electrical engineer and politician
• Alise Willoughby, BMX racer and Olympic silver medalist.^[93]
• Nate Wolters, professional basketball player
• Gig Young, Academy Award-winning actor, film and television star; born in St. Cloud

• Spalt, Bavaria, Germany
• Akita, Japan
• Saint-Cloud, Ile-de-France, France

• Courtroom scenes in the Disney Film The Mighty Ducks were filmed in St. Cloud, and a few scenes were filmed at the Municipal Athletic Complex (MAC) but did not make the final film.^[94]
• Al Franken and Tom Davis's One More Saturday Night is set in St. Cloud, but was not filmed there.
• The movie Juno was partially set in St. Cloud, which is referred to as "East Jesus Nowhere", though no filming took place in the city.^[95]
• The 1989 drag-racing film Catch Me If You Can, directed by Stephen Sommers, was both set and filmed in St. Cloud.^[96]
• Marshall Eriksen, one of the main characters in the sitcom How I Met Your Mother, was born and raised in St. Cloud. Many scenes detailing his childhood, as well as later visits to his hometown, are set in St. Cloud, though no filming occurred there.

• 1998 St. Cloud explosion
• Dave Torrey Arena