The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1928-06-07
(By A. H. Hendrickson)


Sank Centre was in what is now
the Town of Kandota. With the ex-
.ception of Alexander Moore, of
whom Ignatius Donnelly once said
''The first thing Noah saw when
he came out of the ark was Alex
.ander Moore plodding through the
mud with plat of Sank Centre I'M
der his arm" 1t was not at Sank
Centre, however that Noah saw
him. 1t was not until 1856 did
Mr.. Moore presented a plat of Sank
Centre, that is a plat locating a
place which bears the name OF
Sank Centre located on the Sauk
River near the foot of Sank Lake.
The land was not surveyed than.
Alexander Moore somewhere with
this plat was all that Sank Centre
had in 1856 when E. w. White
field came here and located the
Townsite of Kandota. He came
with his daughter Lillian and locat-
ed on the east bank of what is
now known as Ashley creek, at the
north end of the old Kandota
bridge, near Fairy Lake.
Mr.. Whitefeld was not only a
victim of the Townsite fever that
prevailed at that time, but he was
also an artist. He did not only
see the value of his location in dol
lars and cents but, as an artist, saw
the beauty of it also.
Mr.. Whitefeld associated with
'Chas. Cook and A. &c. Ashley wenr
to the legislature in February
1858, and had bill passed creating
the Kandota Townsite Company.
AS soon las the government survey
of the township was made in 1858,
this company entered six hundred
acres of land under the govern
ment Townsite Act and thus be-
came tn owners of the land south
of Fairy lake still known as the
Whitefeld land and still owned by
the Wlhitefeld family.
All three of this Townsite Com
pany settled on this land Mr..
Whitefeld, as before stated, on
the bank of the Ashley; Mr.. Cook
on the south shore of Fairy Lake;
Mr.. Ashley located further down
on Ashley creek over what is now
the Stearns County line. After Mr..
Ashley moved away Mr.. Cook
moved into his house and lived
there till the time of the Indian
outbreak.
Speaking about beauty, the in
tention of the Kandota Townsite
Company was to dam up the Ash
ley to the height of some thing
like a 20 or 80 foot head about
where the Great Northern "K" line
crosses this stream; thus covering
all these wet sloughs above the
proposed dam, leaving a few wood
ed islands in the lake so formed
and few points sticking out into
this lake and this height would
have brought the water up high
enough to have formed a sandy
beach all around this lake and
connecting with Fairy Lake, or
just leave a narrow ridge between
the two.
Some portion of the flat on the
west side of the river was plated
and this was to have been the
TOWNSHIP.
The Whitefeld house was E
stopping place on the st. Cloud.
Pembina road for many years, be-
ing for more or less of the time
the only one of the kind between
New Munich and Holmes City.
Kandota post office was estab-
lished in this house in 1858 and
remained till the Indian outbreak.
The Name
The name Kandota is from the
Indian name of Fairy Lake and
the Ashley creek which evidently
once ran through Fairy lake. When
white settlers first came here it
appeared as if it had not been so
very long before that the water
had broken through the bank south
of the above named railroad bridge
thus leaving the present meadows
and sloughs dry and forming new
outlet for the creek. According to
a legend told by the Indians there
once was battle fought near this
lake between the Chippewa and
Sioux Indians. This is very likely
when we remember that for a great
length of time the Sank River was
the boundary line between Chip
pewa and Sioux territory. The
boundary was fixed here by a
treaty at Fort Smelling in 1926. 1t
must have been there before, as
the famous Chippewa, Chief Hole
in-the-Day, at the treaty of
Fon iu Lac in 1887 when the
land east of the Sank river was
coded to the United States said:
1'This land is mine; my father
took it from the Sioux" His faith
er was at that time very old so it
must have been long before 1925.
Possibly this was the battle above
referred to where he took the land
-up to the river, for tradition has it
that the Sioux chief seeing that he
was beat cried out "Kan-dotah."
Let us quit, or let us rest" and
from that time on the lake was call
ed Kan-do-tah.
Where this battle was fought
is unknown but it might have been
on the west side or across the
"outlet" of the lake near where
the Indian graveyard is. MIR.
iWhitefeli renamed the lake
"Fairy" from it's Fairy-like beauty.
Mr.. Whitefeld's daughter Lillian,
who later as Lillian Ramsey be
came the owner of the property
here, and the upper part of Fairy
y