history mystery

Do you know your French? In our continuing effort to get to the bottom of the business of where the Cloquet name came from, we found this front page of the Minneapolis newspaper, Echo de L'ouest, from February of 1918. It appears that the issue is profiling the state of things in the booming lumber city eight months before the devastating fire.

The beginning of the article, using the very rudimentary French known by Pine Knot staffers, seems to describe where the name may have come from. We see a question mark, and the mention of the name Cloutier, which would indicate the theory of whether a Fond du Lac fur trapper by that name ever met Joseph Nicollet. This could be just another branch in the rabbit hole of Cloquet nomenclature. Nicollet mapped the region back in the late 1830s and is the one who first dubbed the St. Louis River tributary as the Cloquet River. The resulting map was released in 1843. Unfortunately, Nicollet died shortly after the map was released, and the trail goes cold there.

Knowing how the river got its name is the key to how Knife Falls became the incorporated village of Cloquet. We've looked into that as well, and have been able to find only the legislative bill that allowed the incorporation in 1883. There is no explanation of why the name was chosen, although Cloquet had been used interchangeably with Knife Falls for some time before then.

Perhaps this newspaper find isn't the key to unlocking the mystery, but if you know French and can translate the copy you see here, please pass your work on to us at [email protected]. We can also send you the entire article for further homework. It's likely an interesting peek at life in Cloquet before the fire.

C'est la vie.