East Lake is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Spalding Township, Aitkin County,

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 ...

, United States. State Highway 65 ( MN 65) and Aitkin County Road 13 (360th Street) are two of the main routes in the community. Auto Tour Road, 363rd Lane, is nearby. The Rice River and Wakefield Brook both flow through the community. Nearby places include

McGregor McGregor may refer to: People * McGregor (surname) * Clan MacGregor, a Scottish highland clan * McGregor W. Scott (born 1962), U.S. attorney Places in Canada: * McGregor Lake, Alberta; a lake * McGregor, British Columbia * McGregor Plateau, Nec ...

Thor Thor (from ) is a prominent list of thunder gods, god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding æsir, god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology, sacred g ...

, Lawler,

Tamarack ''Larix laricina'', commonly known as the tamarack, hackmatack, eastern larch, black larch, red larch, or American larch, is a species of larch native to Canada, from eastern Yukon and Inuvik, Northwest Territories east to Newfoundland, and als ...

, and Rice Lake National Wildlife Refuge.

Geography

East Lake, located immediately east of Big Rice Lake, is located in section 20 of Spalding Township. The community had a post office from 1910 to 1953, operated by early settler Anthony Spicola. The community at one time was served by the

Soo Line Railroad The Soo Line Railroad is one of the primary United States railroad subsidiaries for the CPKC Railway , one of six U.S. Class I railroads, controlled through the Soo Line Corporation. Although it is named for the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Saul ...

and had a railroad station and a sawmill. Today, the abandoned railroad grade has been converted into a recreational trail.

History

Ojibwe people The Ojibwe (; syll.: ᐅᒋᐺ; plural: ''Ojibweg'' ᐅᒋᐺᒃ) are an Anishinaabe people whose homeland (''Ojibwewaki'' ᐅᒋᐺᐘᑭ) covers much of the Great Lakes region and the northern plains, extending into the subarctic and thr ...

s lived in the area for centuries. Under the 1855 Treaty of Washington (10 Stat. 1165), an Indian Reservation for the Rice Lake Band of Mississippi Chippewa was supposed to be established, but due to several lakes in the area all translated into English as "Rice Lake", the Rice Lake Indian Reservation was never platted. However, the Rice Lake Band claimed the intended "Rice Lake" was Big Rice Lake, located immediately west of the community. Because of the Big Rice Lake's prominent feature of having a groved island, the community is called in the

Ojibwe language Ojibwe ( ), also known as Ojibwa ( ), Ojibway, Otchipwe,R. R. Bishop Baraga, 1878''A Theoretical and Practical Grammar of the Otchipwe Language''/ref> Ojibwemowin, or Anishinaabemowin, is an Indigenous languages of the Americas, indigenous la ...

''Minisinaakwaang'' (By the Groved Island). After the Rice Lake National Wildlife Refuge was established and forced removal of the Ojibwe peoples off the Refuge, the scattered Ojibwe population in the immediate area consolidated about the village and its train station.

Community

Today, East Lake serves as the administrative center for the

Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Mille can refer to: People * Constantin Mille, Romanian journalist and politician * Mathieu Mille, French ice hockey player Places * Mille Lacs County, Minnesota * Mille Lacs Lake in Minnesota. * Mille River, a tributary of the Awash River ...

, District II. The community has an Assisted Living Unit, a Minnesota Charter School named Minisinaakwaang Leadership Academy, and the East Lake Convenience Store and Laundromat. ZIP code 55760 (McGregor) serves East Lake.

References

Unincorporated communities in Minnesota Unincorporated communities in Aitkin County, Minnesota {{AitkinCountyMN-geo-stub