1857 was a big year for McLeod County and the state of Minnesota. It was a year inside of an era when settlers from the east began flocking to central Minnesota to settle the land. All over the region, pioneers traveled down rough-and-tumble trails through the central Minnesota wilderness — all with one thing in mind, an opportunity to sow some roots in a new home.
In McLeod County, a settlement was made where Buffalo Creek joined Lake Addie. Called the Lake Addie settlement, it had been settled by a cluster of pioneers in 1856-57, and was given a school district and election judges. It looked to be a settlement on the rise. One settler that it attracted was a man named Sam Brown. He, his son-in-law and 14-year-old son, Charles, traveled to the area of Lake Addie and purchased a piece of land where he contracted a local man to build them a log home. Sam’s other son, Alonzo, joined the family in the fall of that year.
The area attracted more settlers over the next few years, but in 1861, the flow of new settlers slowed dramatically when war broke out in the Southern United States. Thousands of young Minnesota men answered the call of President Abraham Lincoln and joined the ranks of the Union Army — of them were Alonzo and Charles Brown, both of whom enlisted in the 4th Minnesota Volunteers. In the spring of 1862, Charles was killed by the Confederates in the siege of Cornith, Mississippi. Alonzo would rise to the Army’s ranks, eventually earning the rank of captain. He would go on to command a company of African-American soldiers. In 1866 he was discharged from the Army and returned to the Brown family home near Lake Addie.
The home Alonzo would return to, however, had seen a fair share of bloodshed in his absence. Shortly after the start of the Civil War, Minnesota Native Americans went to war with white Americans in the state. The fighting had a profound effect on life in Lake Addie, most notably, the White family that was killed near the settlement. Life went on, however, and the area was on the radar of the railroads.
In 1877, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul rail line surveyed a grade through the area of Lake Addie. To put Lake Addie on the map, local landowner John Schilling platted the town of Lake Addie. At the same time, however, Alonzo Brown also platted a town of which he named Brownton. For eight years, the two towns co-existed, but in 1886, Brownton grew large enough to swallow Lake Addie and legally annexed the “original” community into its own.
The story of Lake Addie and Brownton echoes that of many from Minnesota’s settlement era of the late 1850s. The community served its purpose for the settlers, was transformed by the railroad, thrived through the mid-20th century and has since seen a decline in modern times. As with all things in history, however, the story of the town, and of those who settled it, lives on in the annals of McLeod County history.
No one can say that the story of Brownton, nor those of any other small communities, shall be forgotten as long as people remain stewards of local history.
