Buchanan County is a former

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

. It was established May 23, 1857, as a county in the

Minnesota Territory The Territory of Minnesota was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 3, 1849, until May 11, 1858, when the eastern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the state of Minnesota and the w ...

, named after President

James Buchanan James Buchanan Jr. ( ; April 23, 1791June 1, 1868) was the 15th president of the United States, serving from 1857 to 1861. He also served as the United States Secretary of State, secretary of state from 1845 to 1849 and represented Pennsylvan ...

.Brown, Calvin L. (1922). "Some Changes in Local Boundaries and Names in Minnesota" in ''Minnesota History Bulletin'' 4:5. (St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society).
/ref> It comprised the 24 northern

township A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...

s, now forming the northern half of

Pine County, Minnesota Pine County is a county in the U.S. state of Minnesota. As of the 2020 census, the population was 28,876. Its county seat is Pine City. The county was formed in 1856 and organized in 1872. Today, Pine County is the fastest growing county in ...

. The Buchanan County seat was Fortuna (known today as

Sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

). This county was dissolved and incorporated with Pine County in 1861. In recent years, residents of Pine County proposed dividing the county in half, re-introducing Buchanan County. The referendum for this proposal went to ballot in 2000 and was rejected.

References

Former counties of Minnesota 1857 establishments in Minnesota Territory Populated places disestablished in 1861 Populated places established in 1857 1861 disestablishments in Minnesota