Detroit Lakes — A City with a Past

Detroit Lakes — A City with a Past. . , This lake and the city located on its northern shore received its name from the French word “détroit,” meaning a narrow place in a lake and in this case referred to the bar which divides Little and Big Detroit Lakes. Today this can be seen about one mile to the right of this location, where a sandbar (now covered by water) separates the two lakes. Even today, boats must use a marked channel to pass between Big and Little Detroit Lakes. The story is told of the French priest who was traveling through the country and camped for the night on the north shore of what is now Detroit Lake in plain sight of where the long outline of the bar was glimmering in the setting sun. The Father exclaimed “see what a beautiful détroit.”, The first building in Detroit Lakes was a home built by Donald McDonald just west of where the Pelican River enters Detroit Lake in 1854. When the Northwestern Pacific Railroad reached this area in 1871 it stopped at a small group of buildings that at that time was called Tyler Town, located on the eastern edge of today’s city. This was the humble beginning of the city of Detroit, Minnesota, which retained that name until 1926 when it was changed to Detroit Lakes, Minnesota to avoid increasing postal confusion with Detroit, Michigan., The “Lady of the Lakes,” one of many steamboats to use Detroit Lakes in the 1880’s would pick up vacationers and visitors near this very site who had disembarked from trains that came from Minneapolis, St. Paul and Chicago. It would take them to Detroit and on to Shoreham, Minnesota which is located approximately three miles southwest of this site on the Pelican River. , Many of the early settlers who came to this area were Civil War veterans coming to claim their 160 acres of homesteaded land. The Village of Detroit was named the seat of Becker County in 1877 and was incorporated as a village in 1881.