St. Cloud, MN

St. Cloud developed on both sides of the Mississippi River and took its name from Saint-Cloud, the Paris suburb named for the sixth-century monk Clodoald. The Stearns County seat extends into Benton and Sherburne counties and recorded 68,881 residents in 2020. It was a waystation on the Middle and Woods branches of the Red River Trails, where Métis traders moved between Pembina and Saint Paul in trains that could contain hundreds of oxcarts. The city operates Minnesota’s largest municipally managed hydroelectric dam, producing nearly nine megawatts on the Mississippi. St. Cloud State University stands near the Beaver Islands, about 30 undeveloped islands within a 12-mile wild and scenic river segment. South of downtown, seven-acre Lake George became a restoration example in 2021, when state regulators credited a decade of city filtration work with reducing phosphorus below the state standard.