page_title: Woodbury, Minnesota
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Woodbury, Minnesota / History
context_page_description: Woodbury is a city in Washington County, Minnesota, and part of the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area. Woodbury is situated east of Saint Paul along Interstate 94. The 2019 population for Woodbury was 72,828, making it the 9th most populous city in Minnesota.
context_section_description: At almost 36 square miles in size, Woodbury is a direct descendant of one of the congressional townships that Minnesota Territory was divided into when the territory was ceded by the Native Americans of the United States and "opened to settlement."  Woodbury was originally named Red Rock, but was renamed Woodbury after Levi Woodbury, the first justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to attend law school, realized that another Red Rock existed in Minnesota. When first settled in 1844, the land was mostly wood but was converted to farmland.  The township government was organized in 1858.  One of the city's few surviving 19th-century farms, the Charles Spangenberg Farmstead, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
  In 1955, the first suburban development broke ground in Woodbury: Woodbury Heights. After some years of growth, the town government could not adequately provide services for the new developments, and it became clear that Woodbury needed the government of a village with extra privileges. The earliest proposal for incorporation officially came in 1963 after two years of debate. 
  The Minnesota Municipal Commission had recently found that the fragmented way in which the Minneapolis suburbs and the suburbs around White Bear Lake had developed was disadvantageous. It made coordinating sewers, public water systems, and other amenities difficult. Thus, the Commission had been encouraging towns to incorporate in full whenever possible.
  Since 1961, the Town of Cottage Grove had been trying to become a village, and the Minnesota Municipal Commission took it upon themselves to push for a joint incorporation of Woodbury and Cottage Grove as the Village of Washington. The idea was agreed upon by the two town commissions, and the issue was put up for a vote during the general election of 1963. It lost with 662 votes for joint incorporation, and 1,284 against. Cottage Grove would later incorporate on its own in 1965.
  In 1966, a series of meetings took place setting up the incorporation of the Village of Woodbury. A vote was conducted on February 14, 1967, with 543 voting for incorporation, and 164 against. The Village was officially incorporated on March 7, 1967.
caption: The Woodbury city flag fluttering
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