History Mystery

This is a History Mystery that will likely never be solved, so we plan to have many installments regarding the topic: How did the name Cloquet come about?

Some spotty history tells us that the town once known as Knife Falls, named for the jagged-rock rapids on the St. Louis River, became Cloquet upon incorporation. Most assume the city name came from the Cloquet River, a tributary to the St. Louis and major log-delivery artery that boosted Cloquet into prominence as a wood processing center. But we don't exactly know the precise machinations that occurred that officially changed the name of the settlement in the 1880s. For a while, the area had Shaw Town, Nelson Town, and Johnson Town based on early mills. They collectively became Knife Falls. For a long period of time, Knife Falls and Cloquet became interchangeable, even with the platting and incorporation of Cloquet beginning in 1883. Eventually, the post office began refusing any mail addressed to Knife Falls and Cloquet gained prominence. Knife Falls became the township surrounding the city.

So we're looking for information about the name change and about how Cloquet came into the local vernacular. The eponymous river began as Rapid River from expedition maps in the 1820s. The first sighting of Cloquet comes from Joseph Nicollet's map published by the federal government in 1843. The river is shown here in a copy of the map from the Library of Congress.

Nicollet explored the area in the 1830s and is renowned for mapping much of Minnesota. But he never provided a recorded explanation for his naming of the Cloquet River, having died the same year the map was printed.

Some say Nicollet named it after famous doctors in his home country of France. Some believe he got the name from a fur trader or Fond du Lac mission settler, although historians trying to find this mysterious "Cloquet" have come up empty-handed. No one seems to know for sure where Cloquet comes from.

Why do we care? Well, there just aren't many place names we can think where the etymology can't be nailed down. Stay tuned. We'll provide more details as we root around. We know there are some recorded theories at the Carlton County Historical Society and in old newspaper clippings, some we are translating from French.

If you have any leads, contact the History Mystery team at [email protected].