Masculine mojo runs deep, even in our Minnesota counties

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Between flatback hats worn everywhere these days (Hats in church!), phrases tagged with “bro” (“Seriously, bro?”), and countless country songs comparing pickup-truck beds to honeymoon suites (e.g. Jason Aldean’s “Take a Little Ride”), masculine mojo wreathes itself like a fog throughout Americana. There are many reasons for the rise of “bro-country” (think recent political quips — e.g., “I’ll protect women whether they like it or not”), but one underrated reason looms right before our eyes — in Minnesota’s “bro-county” map.

Long before politicians in the 21st century were deriding women (e.g., President Donald Trump and his crowd at his final Grand Rapids, Mich., presidential rally called then-Vice President Kamala Harris a profanity in early November), Minnesotans chiseled bro masculinity into its maps. While tinkering with names is akin to spitting into the wind, examining the past to see ourselves in the present is worth doing.

Minnesota counties with names like Hennepin, Ramsey, Stearns, Todd, Sibley, Wright, Sherburne and Swift, for example, represent just a few of the 52 counties named after men between 1849 and 1923. A 1969 article about Minnesota county place names written by Warren Upham and featured on the state legislative website touts the “diversity” of Minnesota’s 87 counties, typified by their Anglican and Indigenous names as well as some for different geographical features, “from the flat potato and ... sugar beet country of Red River Valley in northwestern Minnesota to the dairy farms and hardwood forests of the southeast, and from the lush lake country of the northeast to the rich prairie lands in southwestern Minnesota.” Diversity to Upham in 1969 didn’t include women (mostly), nor ethnicities beyond Anglican, Ojibwan and Dakotan.

To be fair to Upham, Minnesota generously incorporated Indigenous names into its county registry. Twelve counties, including Kanabec, Koochiching and Mahnomen, for example, are derived directly from the Ojibwe language, and 15 others — like Big Stone, Blue Earth and Crow Wing — are Anglicized names derived from long-standing Native American references to places and people. Other counties, like “Lake,” “Redwood,” and “Rock,” are named after prominent landmarks. Thus, roughly one-third of the county names emanate from the vestiges of Indigenous identification — before Minnesota was ratified as a state in 1858. The Ojibwe and Dakota names should stir some pride for Minnesotans, especially compared to states like North and South Dakota, which wiped maps clean of most Native American names and referents. (The exception is Minnehaha County in South Dakota, which is named after the Sioux word for “waterfall.”)

But five decades after Warren Upham’s “Minnesota Geographic Names” was published by the Minnesota Historical Society, it’s worth pondering how attitudes about the map’s diversity may have evolved. From the latter half of the 19th century to Minnesota’s last-named county — Lake of the Woods — in 1923, most counties have been named after men. As one would expect, the men honored with county names were prominent figures who put Minnesota on the map, so to speak. Early governors like Lucius Hubbard and Alexander Ramsey, for example, were government officials, and Minnesota senators like Henry Sibley, Henry Rice and Maj. Michael Cook were august Minnesota citizens who would naturally dot maps made at the time they served in official roles.

Several counties, too, are named for plain men who were hardscrabble characters in their territories. Morrison County (1857), for example, is named for brothers William and Allan, who “settled and worked in the area.” Freeborn County was named for a humble settler — William Freeborn — while Pennington County was named for a railroad operator. These men didn’t have government laurels but represented the character of Minnesota’s map.

Oddly, though, over 15 men honored with county names were not actually associated with Minnesota. Counties like Houston, Beltrami, Benton, Douglas, Cass, Scott — and even Lincoln, Fillmore, Polk and Washington (counties that honored former presidents) — were named after men who spent little or no time in Minnesota. Sam Houston, for example, was not a Minnesotan, but, rather, the president of the Republic of Texas, which is a far way away from the seat of Caledonia! Ulysses S. Grant, too, has no connection to Minnesota. Even if he did, counties in South and North Dakota already honor him (in fact, 11 counties throughout the U.S. are named for Grant!). There is such a thing as too much Grant.

Thus, without much fuss, Minnesotans could carve out at least a few new names to memorialize, say, the four pioneering women profiled by the Twin Cities PBS station in 2022 who had an important impact on the state’s early history: Julia Nelson, Marie Bottineau Baldwin, Dr. Martha Ripley, and Nellie Griswold Francis. Arguably, Mother Alfred Moes, too, should be recognized, as she was instrumental in the development of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. Of course, there are many, many women whose names should represent Minnesota on the map, and it’s time to propose a few changes to overlap some of the choices made 150 years ago. To be even more thoughtful, the pool of names could be expanded to include recent leaders and to include more nationalities. There’s some low-hanging fruit among Minnesota’s county names that could be easy to reimagine and rename if Minnesotans wanted to incorporate more diversity into its map.

It’s not new to propose fresh county names. According to Upham, Wilkin County in western Minnesota has sported three different names: “Earlier it was named for a U.S. senator from Georgia who later became the Confederacy’s secretary of state; then for Andrew Johnson who succeeded Abraham Lincoln to the presidency. Neither of them was acceptable to county residents, so they petitioned the Legislature to change the name [to Minnesotan Civil War hero Col. Alexander] Wilkin” in 1868. In short, there’s precedent for tweaking names, and we could look to the past to forge an inclusive future.

Lexicographers will remind us that changing place names is daunting. There are a lot of levers to pull before a name can be amended on a map. It took 40 years to reclaim “Mount Denali” from “McKinley” in Alaska, for example. It’s hard to believe the new presidential administration wants to change it back to McKinley! In Minneapolis, changing Lake Calhoun’s name to Bde Maka Ska had to pass through numerous layers of governmental agencies, from the Park Board to the DNR to the county registrar and, finally, to the U.S. Board of Geographic Names. There are obstacles to building consensus to change a name, for sure. Still, it’s worth imagining a map that’s peppered with folks who more widely represent Minnesota’s rich history.

For consolation to those who wish we had more diversity on our map, we can point to one Minnesota county that’s ostensibly named for a woman: Winona. The Ojibwe word for “firstborn daughter,” Winona is a mythical figure who claimed her independence from someone she didn’t love. While she may not have been a woman of flesh and blood, Winona’s mythical spirit looms on Maiden Rock near Lake Pepin, and her defiance may inspire us to update maps with diverse names that bear greater significance for Minnesota history.

Patrick Mulrooney lives in Eden Prairie.