Saint Paul is the second largest city in the U. The origin and growth of the city were spurred by the proximity of Fort Snelling , the first major United States military installation in the area, as well as by the city's location on the northernmost navigable port of the Upper Mississippi River.
Fort Snelling, originally known as Fort Saint Anthony, was established in , at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers in order to establish American dominance of the fur-trading industry on the rivers. As the whiskey trade started to flourish, military officers in Fort Snelling banned distillers from the land the fort controlled.
Pierre "Pig's Eye" Parrant , a retired French Canadian fur trader turned bootlegger , was a particular source of irritation to military officers. In , Parrant moved his bootlegging operation downstream about 5 miles 8. An treaty with local Native Americans secured the city for white settlement. By the early s the area had become important as a trading center, a stopping point for settlers heading west, and was known regionally as Pig's Eye or Pig's Eye Landing.
Saint Paul was incorporated as a city in , and in , Minnesota was admitted as the 32nd state of the union with Saint Paul becoming the capital. Natural geography played a role in the settlement and development of Saint Paul as a trade and transportation center. The Mississippi River valley in the area surrounding the city is defined by numerous stone bluffs that line both sides of the river.
Saint Paul developed around Lambert's Landing, the last easily accessible point to unload boats coming upriver, some 14 miles 23 km downstream from Saint Anthony Falls , the geographic feature that defined the location of Minneapolis and its prominence as the "Mill City". In , more than 1, steamboats unloaded cargo and passengers at Saint Paul. For well over a hundred years, Saint Paul was a frontier town and a railroad town. By the late 20th century, the city became more influenced by commerce, as well as its role as the state capital.
