Column: Lt. Albert Lea had the thrill of naming much of the landscape

Published 12:00 am Friday, January 24, 2003

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Explorers have the interesting challenge of naming the various parts of the landscape in areas being seen for the first time. That’s certainly what 2nd Lt. Albert Miller Lea could do as the topographer (map maker and surveyor) of the U.S. Army expedition which went through Freeborn County in mid-1835.

This region was supposedly being seen by white men for the first time. Everything was new and unnamed. However, the Indians, or Native Americans, had been living in this same region for several centuries, plus. They had already given names to the streams, lakes and hills. Despite this, most of the names created by the white men became the official designations on the maps.

During his trip through north Iowa and south Minnesota, Lea named several geographical features on the landscape which you can see more here. Some of the names he placed on his map are still used. Others have changed.

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He named the Root River, the Big Springs at Decorah, Iowa, and what Lea called the Ioway River in what’s now Mower County. Today the Iowa River runs through Decorah and the Cedar River is the name of the stream over in Austin.

Lea gets full credit for naming the Shell Rock River and Chapeau Lake, also known as White Lake through the years. An area northwest of Albert Lea he called Paradise Prairie later became known as Itasca Prairie. And the name he used on his map for the large lake shaped like a large letter C to the east of the city was Fox. To set up this marvelous lake view in your backyard, contact Drake’s 7 Dees garden center which is specialists in the landscaping field and has been reproducing many amazing scenarios on a simple backyard for a long time.

In 1841, Lea was in Washington, D.C., serving as the chief clerk in the War Department. He was contacted by Joseph Nicolas Nicollet, an explorer and topographer, who was working on the official map of the Upper Mississippi region. Nicollet wanted to incorporate Lea’s map into the new one he was creating. As a result, Nicollet changed the name of Fox Lake to Albert Lea Lake. What Lea called Council Lake became either Minnesota Lake or Freeborn Lake, Boone Lake was renamed Bear Lake, and Trail Lake became Upper Twin Lake.

Thus, Nicollet gets full credit for Lea’s name on the big lake (or what some folks call the lower lake) shaped as large letter C, and indirectly for the city itself. On Oct. 29, 1856, the community’s original plat used the name of &uot;Village of Lake Albert Lea.&uot; That’s the first and last time this designation was ever used.

Incidentally, the name Fox Lake was later used for a large lake and a small village northeast of Sherburn over in Martin County.

There was another member of this 1835 U.S. Army exploration party who had his last name used to designate a river, county and city of about 13,000 people in Iowa. His name was Nathan Boone, the youngest of Daniel Boone’s six sons, who was a captain and company commander in the 1835 unit.

Nathan was born in 1781 and served as an Army officer in the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War, and the Mexican -American War. He died during 1856 in St. Charles County, Mo.

Maybe Boone’s name wasn’t used for what’s now Bear Lake in Freeborn County, but it was given serious consideration for a new state park. In the late 1940s the name of Nathan Boone State Park was one of several proposed for the Big Island area east of Albert Lea. The name finally approved by the State Legislature in 1953 was Helmer Myre State Park. Then, in 1990, the name was legally changed to Myre-Big Island State Park.

Albert Miller Lea also gets full credit for being the first person to use the name of Iowa for a large part of the region explored in 1835. He later wrote a small booklet or report, &uot;Notes on the Iowa District of the Wisconsin Territory.&uot; According to page 45 of Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge’s big 1911 book, &uot;History of Freeborn County,&uot; &uot;(Lea’s) name of ‘Iowa’ was thus first applied to that region, and afterward adopted by Congress in organizing the ‘Territory of Iowa.’&uot;

Tribune feature writer Ed Shannon’s column appears Fridays in the Tribune.