Wayzata: Gateway to Lake Minnetonka
Near Minneapolis St Paul, Minnesota
The name Wayzata comes from the Dakota word waziyata, meaning north or north shore, a reminder that Lake Minnetonka's shores were Dakota homeland long before any railroad arrived. The Treaty of Mendota in eighteen fifty-one opened these lands to American settlement, and most Dakota were forcibly expelled from Minnesota after the eighteen sixty-two U.S.
-Dakota War. The town of Wayzata was platted in eighteen fifty-four and remained small until the railroad arrived in eighteen sixty-seven. Almost overnight it became a resort gateway: grand hotels rose along the lakeshore, wealthy Minneapolis families built summer homes, and steamboats worked the lake's many bays and channels.
By eighteen ninety the resort era had peaked. Today Wayzata is an affluent suburb, but the railroad still runs along the waterfront, and the lake remains the same one the Dakota called Minnetonka, which means Big Water.
