The population was 68, at the census , [ 4 ] making it Minnesota's 12th-largest city. Though mostly in Stearns County, St. Cloud also extends into Benton and Sherburne counties, and straddles the Mississippi River. Joseph , Rockville , and St. The St. Cloud metropolitan area had a population of , at the census. It has been listed as the fifth-largest metro with a presence in Minnesota, behind MinneapolisโSt.
But the entire St. Cloud area is within Minnesota, while most of Fargo-Moorhead's population is in North Dakota and Superior, Wisconsin, contributes significant population to the Duluth area. Cloud is 65 miles km northwest of the Twin Cities of MinneapolisโSt. Paul along Interstate 94 , U. Highway 52 conjoined with I , U. Cloud State University , Minnesota's third-largest public university, is located between the downtown area and the Beaver Islands, which form a maze for a two-mile stretch of the Mississippi.
The approximately 30 undeveloped islands are a popular destination for kayak and canoe enthusiasts during safe river levels and flow. What is now the St. Cloud area was occupied by various indigenous peoples for thousands of years. Voyageurs and coureurs des bois from New France first encountered the Ojibwe and Dakota through the highly profitable North American fur trade with local Native American peoples. Minnesota Territory was organized in Cloud area opened up to homesteading [ 17 ] after the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux was signed with the Dakota people in John L.
Wilson, a Yankee homesteader from Columbia, Maine , with French Huguenot ancestry and an interest in Napoleon , named the settlement St. Cloud after Saint-Cloud , the Paris suburb where Napoleon had his favorite palace. The cart trains often consisted of hundreds of oxcarts. Cloud or just to the north in Sauk Rapids. The City of St. Cloud was incorporated in It developed from three distinct settlements, known as Upper Town, Middle Town, and Lower Town, that European-American settlers established starting in Middle Town was settled primarily by German Catholic immigrants and migrants from eastern states, who were recruited to the region by Father Francis Xavier Pierz , a Catholic priest who also ministered as a missionary to Native Americans.
Upper Town, or Arcadia, was plotted by General Sylvanus Lowry , a slaveholder and trader from Kentucky who brought slaves with him, although Minnesota was organized as a free territory.
