Rutledge, Minnesota

Rutledge sits where the Kettle and Pine Rivers come together in Pine County, a site where Native Americans lived along the Kettle River for generations before Euro-American settlement arrived. A Government Road connecting Saint Paul to Superior, Wisconsin, passed through here in the eighteen sixties, and a bridge was built at a spot called the Rock Dam. The village was named for Edward Rutledge, a local lumberman who built several sawmills in the area.

On Valentine's Day, eighteen ninety-three, residents held an incorporation vote. Twenty-two ballots were cast, nineteen in favor. The little community officially became a village.

It has stayed small ever since, a couple hundred residents at a river crossing that loggers once depended on.