Garen is an abandoned settlement in

Washington County, Minnesota Washington County is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Minnesota. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 267,568, making it the fifth-most populous county in Minnesota. Its county seat is Stillw ...

, United States. Garen was located south of Forest Lake, on present U.S. Route 61.

History

Garen was founded after a spark from a

Northern Pacific Railway The Northern Pacific Railway was an important American transcontinental railroad that operated across the northern tier of the Western United States, from Minnesota to the Pacific Northwest between 1864 and 1970. It was approved and chartered b ...

train ignited a fire in a peat bog located there. Local cattle farmers sued the railway, and as part of the settlement, the railway built a siding with cattle pens so farmers could load cattle into boxcars for shipment to the

Saint Paul Paul, also named Saul of Tarsus, commonly known as Paul the Apostle and Saint Paul, was a Christian apostle ( AD) who spread the teachings of Jesus in the first-century world. For his contributions towards the New Testament, he is generally ...

stockyards. A boxcar was used as a station. The settlement was named for Frank and Sarah Garen, whose farm had been affected by the fire. Garen prospered during the early 1900s, and had a store, and a school that was used as a community center. During the 1930s and 1940s, the Half-Way Inn was located there.

History

References

Further reading