Cook County, Minnesota

Cook County, Minnesota
Cook County Courthouse
Location in the U.S. state of Minnesota
Minnesota's location in the U.S.
Founded	March 9, 1874
Named for	Michael Cook, Territorial and State Senator
Seat	Grand Marais
Largest city	Grand Marais
Area
• Total	3,340 sq mi (8,651 km2)
• Land	1,452 sq mi (3,761 km2)
• Water	1,887 sq mi (4,887 km2), 57%
Population (est.)
• (2015)	5,194
• Density	3.6/sq mi (1/km²)
Congressional district	8th
Time zone	Central: UTC-6/-5
Website	www.co.cook.mn.us

Not to be confused with Cook, Minnesota in Saint Louis County.

Cook County is a county located in the U.S. state of Minnesota. As of the 2010 census, the population was 5,176, making it the fifth-least populous county in Minnesota. Its county seat is Grand Marais. The Grand Portage Indian Reservation is entirely within the county.

The first inhabitants of what is now Cook County, Minnesota were the Ojibwe people.

The first non-Native Americans to ever set foot in what is now Cook County, Minnesota were French fur traders. Few of them remained permanently as year-round residents of the area and by the 1830s the French population of what is now Cook County numbered less than fifty.

In the 1830s migrants from New England began moving to what is now Minnesota. These were “Yankee” settlers, that is to say they were descended from the English Puritans who settled New England during the colonial era. While most of them came to Minnesota directly from New England, there were many who came from upstate New York. These were people whose parents had moved from New England to upstate New York in the immediate aftermath of the American Revolution. Due to the prevalence of New Englanders and New England transplants from upstate New York, Minnesota was very culturally contiguous with early New England culture for much of its early history.

The Yankee migration to Minnesota was a result of several factors, one of which was the overpopulation of New England. The old stock Yankee population had large families, often bearing up to ten children in one household. Most people were expected to have their own piece of land to farm, and due to the massive and nonstop population boom, land in New England became scarce as every son claimed his own farmstead. As a result, there was not enough land for every family to have a self-sustaining farm, and Yankee settlers began leaving New England for the Midwestern United States.