1919 Map of St. Francis

About this map

The Rum River meanders through a landscape of dense glacial lakes and early 20th-century agrarian settlements in this survey of northern Anoka County and southern Isanti County. Centered on Saint Francis, the map reveals a highly decentralized rural society organized around a dense network of one-room schoolhouses, including the Nowthen School, Lakeside School, and Baker School. The eastern corridor is defined by the Great Northern railroad, which links the village of Bethel to the surrounding township. This era precedes modern drainage and highway development, showing the original extent of wetlands and prominent water bodies like Lake George and Lake Itasca in their early surveyed state. Smaller settlements such as Crown, Nowthen, and Constance serve as local anchors for a population of farmers and homesteaders whose homesteads are situated among the intricate creek systems and numerous named basins like Pickerel Lake and Bear Lake.