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Clearwater, Minnesota is situated between the Mississippi River and the Clearwater River, mostly in northern Wright County, although a portion of the city extends into Stearns County. Interstate Highway 94 and Minnesota Highway 24 are the main routes through the city. Clearwater is twelve miles south of St. Cloud, sixteen miles northwest of Monticello, and twenty-five miles northwest of Buffalo. Other nearby communities include Becker, Cable, Clear Lake, Enfield, Hasty, Luxemburg, St. Augusta, Silver Creek, and South Haven. The area that became Clearwater was known as Suland to the Indians, and The Big Woods to European-American settlers when they came in the 1850s. Alonzo Boyington and Asa White had claims in the area in 1854, and proposed the name of Eldorado for the new town. A year later, Simon Stevens, Horace Webster and John Farwell made claims on a bluff overlooking the two rivers, and the new townsite was named Clearwater in 1856, and a post office was put into operation that same year. The Clearwater River provided electric power for a saw mill and a couple of flour mills. During the Sioux uprising, a stockade was constructed around the Congregational Church. In 1897, rains brought fourteen inches of water in four hours, destroying the Clearwater mill dam and the railroad bridge. Three properties in Clearwater are listed on the National Register of Historic Places: the First Congregational Church of Clearwater, built in 1861, the 1863 William W. Webster House, and the Clearwater Masonic and Grand Army of the Republic Hall, constructed in 1888.

 

 

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