About Sauk Rapids' Downtown Sauk Rapids

Benton County Historical Society and Museum - Preserving the Past and the Present for the Future...

Benton County Minnesota is centrally located in the state and is adjacent to the counties of Morrison (north), Sherburne (south), Mille Lacs (east) and Stearns (west). The Benton County History Museum is full of local information and an amazing resource for researching genealogy. The Genealogy section is prized, even a partnership has been formed between the Benton County Museum and rootsweb via ancestory.com to aid in the creation of family trees.

At the Benton County Museum you will find a wealth of information about the growth of the area. There are some amazing pictures of the wreckage from the Cyclone of 1886 that struck central Minnesota almost destroying Sauk Rapids. You can learn more about Thomas Hart Benton, Senator for Missouri, who was very instrumental in implementing the homestead act which played a large role in the settling of the 5 original townships in the 408 square miles that became Benton County Minnesota.

Sauk Rapids, the largest city in Benton County, was one of these original townships created in 1858 and was named, by the Sac Indians, for the Mississippi River rapids just below the mouth of the Sauk River. The documented history contained in the museum covers amazing factoids from very early Benton County and Sauk Rapids. For instance: information about Jean Baptiste Perrault who lived in Benton County during 1789, the story of 2 fur traders who wintered at the "Grand Rapids" (Sauk Rapids) during 1797 and notes from Lewis Cass, Territorial Govenor of Michigan, who traveled through in July 1820.

Benton County is part of the St. Cloud Metropolitan Statistical Area and if you did not pay attention to the signs you might not notice that you had crossed from Stearns County into Benton County while driving through St. Cloud (mostly located in Stearns County.) Benton and Stearns Counties have different histories that co-mingle, weaving a part of the history of Minnesota and its prosperous growth.

Benton County is a wonderful place to live from the annual Benton County Fair to its amazing history. If you are interested in living in a strong, well loved, technically un-documented but provably historic home in Benton County, I have a lovely house for sale that is one of few homes left in Sauk Rapids that survived the cyclone of 1886. The home was built in 1884 and it is in very fine condition today. The Benton County Historical Society and Museum located at 218 1st Street North Sauk Rapids, Minnesota and is open Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Sauk Rapids Rice Public Schools Independent School District 47

There have been a lot of changes to the Sauk Rapids Rice School District over the last few years. Most of the changes had to occur as the population of the City of Sauk Rapids grew by over 50% between 1990 and 2004. The biggest of these changes was the addition of a brand new high School building which opened in the fall of 2003. The New Sauk Rapids-Rice Sr. High School is a $47 million, 360,000 sq. foot, 2 story building situated on 250 acres of park preserve, situated on the east side of Highway 10.

The Sauk Rapids-Rice High School, designed with maximum flexibility in mind, is separated into three houses creating a feeling of a smaller school. The design also kept the possibility of future expansion in mind and there is the availability to add a 4th house and extend the student occupancy/allowable enrollment in the school from 1500 up to 2000. The building of the new District 47 school came in under budget and that allowed for some intelligent upgrade to be made such as the flooring is a 75 year Terrazzo and multiple efficiency upgrades were done to the heating system.

The opening of the new Sauk Rapids Rice High School in 2003 created an opportunity to improve the other schools in District 47 too. The building that used to be home to the Senior high school is, as of the 2004-2005 school year, the freshly remodeled middle school with a capacity of 1,200 students. The former middle school is now the Mississippi Heights Elementary School. There were several other changes to the middle schools and elementary schools in the district during the same time.

For more information on the Sauk Rapids-Rice School District you can contact them at Sauk Rapids Rice Public Schools Independent School District 47 1833 Osauka Road NE Sauk Rapids, Minnesota 56379

District Office: 320-253-4703 www.isd47.org