Dodge County, Minnesota

Dodge County, Minnesota
Dodge County Courthouse
Location in the U.S. state of Minnesota
Minnesota's location in the U.S.
Founded	February 20, 1855
Named for	Henry Dodge
Seat	Mantorville
Largest city	Kasson
Area
• Total	440 sq mi (1,140 km2)
• Land	439 sq mi (1,137 km2)
• Water	0.3 sq mi (1 km2), 0.07%
Population (est.)
• (2015)	20,364
• Density	46/sq mi (18/km²)
Congressional district	1st
Time zone	Central: UTC-6/-5
Website	www.co.dodge.mn.us

Dodge County is a county in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The population was 20,087 as of the 2010 census. Its county seat is Mantorville.

Dodge County is part of the Rochester, MN Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Like many counties in Minnesota, Dodge County was originally inhabited by American Indians. The area was a common hunting and battle ground for the Mdewakanton Sioux, often fighting the Sauk and Fox Indians who had wandered into their territory. The first white person to visit Dodge County, however, is not known. It is believed by some that a French fur trader from Canada was the first, setting foot on its soil in the spring of 1655. Guides deemed this area unsafe due to the Natives living there. But, it was not until over two hundred years later the locality truly came to life.

The original founders of Dodge County were settlers from New England. These people were "Yankee's", that is to say they were descended from the English Puritans who settled New England in the 1600s. They were part of a wave of New England farmers who headed west into what was then the wilds of the Northwest Territory during the early 1800s. Most of them arrived as a result of the completion of the Erie Canal. When they arrived in what is now Dodge County there was nothing but a virgin forest and wild prairie, the New Englanders laid out farms, constructed roads, erected government buildings and established post routes. They brought with them many of their Yankee New England values, such as a passion for education, establishing many schools as well as staunch support for abolitionism. They were mostly members of the Congregationalist Church though some were Episcopalian. Culturally Dodge County, like much of Minnesota would be culturally very continuous with early New England culture, for most of its history. It was in 1853 that government surveyors set lines for the townships. A year later, the Mantor brothers, along with Eli P. Waterman, established their claims, which would later be an important town to the area known as "Mantorville." Still a year later, in 1855, Dodge County was organized for local government. Later on in its history, immigrants from Germany, Sweden and Norway would settle in the county. With increasing growth and improvement, Dodge County was officially placed in the Fifth Judicial District by the State Constitution on May 11, 1858. Its name was given in honor of Wisconsin governor Henry Dodge. The Dodge County Courthouse, designed by E. Townsend Mix and built of locally quarried limestone in 1865, is the oldest working courthouse in Minnesota.