A Brief History of St. Paul, MN

In the early years, the settlers lived close to the fort along the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers, but as a whiskey trade started to flourish, the military officers in Fort Snelling banned them from the lands the fort controlled, with one retired fur trader turned bootlegger, Pierre "Pig's Eye" Parrant particularly irritating the officials. By the early 1820s the area had become important as a trading center, a destination for settlers heading west, and was known as Pig's Eye Landing. In 1837, a treaty between Henry Schoolcraft and about 200 Dakota Indians displaced the natives from the site. In 1841 Father Galtier established the Saint Paul Catholic Church and the name of the settlement was formally changed to Saint Paul in honor of the newly constructed church and Father Galtier's favorite saint.