County Past
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Cook County, Minnesota

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

—newspaper titles
—digitized titles
14historic places
—earliest paper
1874formed
5,600pop. 2020
12cemeteries
—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 14 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1966. Most listings are in or near Grand Marais, Schroeder, Cascade River State Park.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers

Library of Congress

Newspaper directory data for Minnesota is not yet loaded on this site. Browse Cook titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

9 of 14 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

14 listed properties
PropertyCityTypeListed
AMBOY and GEORGE SPENCER Shipwreck SitesSchroederSite1994
Bally Blacksmith ShopGrand MaraisBuilding1986
Cascade River WaysideCascade River State ParkSite2003
Chik Wauk LodgeGrand MaraisBuilding2007
Church of St. Francis Xavier-CatholicGrand MaraisBuilding1986
Clearwater LodgeGrand MaraisBuilding1985
Cook County CourthouseGrand MaraisBuilding1983
Fowl Lake SiteHovlandSite1974
Grand Portage National MonumentGrand PortageDistrict1966
Height of LandGrand MaraisSite1974
Lightkeeper's HouseGrand MaraisBuilding1978
Naniboujou Club LodgeGrand MaraisBuilding1982
Schroeder Lumber Company BunkhouseSchroederBuilding1986
Scott, Jim, FishhouseGrand MaraisBuilding1986

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Cook was formed in 1874 (1874-11-03) from Lake.

COOK created from LAKE.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Cook County population from 1880 to 2020 (Census historical series).

5,6002,83265188019201950196020002020
188019001920194019501960198020002020
658101,8413,0302,9003,3774,0925,1685,600

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

National Park Service sites nearby

NPS

Park units within about 40 km of the county centroid (from NPS Public POIs; no API key).

SiteTypeDist.
grpoPark unit50.4 km

Source: NPS National Datasets / Public POIs. The NPS Developer API requires a free key and was not used.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

12 cemeteries and 1 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 12 of 12 listed
NameLatLon
Chippewa City Cemetery47.76098-90.31029
Colvill Community CemeteryNoneNone
Lutsen Cemetery47.64072-90.70818
Maple Hill Cemetery47.79541-90.33285
Mineral Center Cemetery47.94828-89.78026
Old Settlers Cemetery47.84532-89.96223
Pagan Cemetery47.97043-89.69342
Poplar Grove Cemetery47.74677-90.37112
Saint John's Cemetery47.75628-90.31864
Schroeder Cemetery47.54243-90.90524
Tofte Cemetery47.57457-90.84163
Trinity Lutheran Cemetery47.8462-90.01991
Historical populated places — 1 of 1
NameLatLon
Taconite Harbor47.5224-90.92876

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Cook County, Minnesota

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.