Clearwater, Minnesota

Clearwater, Minnesota sits at the northern tip of Wright County, right where the Clearwater River joins the Mississippi. Three early settlers, Simon Stevens, Horace Webster, and John Farwell, are said to have staked out the townsite in eighteen fifty-five, one year after Dakota Treaty lands opened this stretch of the Mississippi to white settlement. By eighteen fifty-six the town was populous enough to need a ferry crossing.

A rope ferry across the Mississippi is said to have given settlers a way to cross what was otherwise a serious barrier for wagons and livestock. The townsite was platted in eighteen fifty-six, making Clearwater one of the oldest communities in Wright County. It never grew into a large city, but for early settlers heading inland from Saint Paul, Clearwater's rope ferry at the Mississippi was a practical gateway into the unsettled prairie beyond.