Prior Lake History
How a railroad village of a few hundred people became a lake suburb.
The lake came first. Dakota bands hunted and fished here long before the railroad came through in 1871 and the lake took a railroad man’s name. Then came a resort hotel, a small farm town and, after 1960, fast growth. There’s a timeline near the end if you want the short version.
The Dakota and the lake
The Dakota name for the lake means “Lake of the Blue Banks.” Written sources spell the name in different ways.
People lived around the lake long before the settlers came. The city’s own history describes large earthen mounds shaped like hawks, from the Late Woodland period, that were destroyed long ago along with most of the burial mounds around the lake. It also says the Dakota villages were in the Minnesota River valley, and Dakota bands came to the lake in summer to hunt and fish.
Mdewakanton means “Dwellers of the Spirit Lake.” The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community’s history says that after the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, almost all Mdewakanton were forced out of Minnesota. A small number were allowed to stay, and between 1886 and 1891 the federal government bought land for them, including parcels in the Prior Lake area.
On November 28, 1969, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community (SMSC) became a federally recognized tribe, with 13 adult voting members, and Norman M. Crooks was elected its first chairman. The SMSC tells its own history on its website, and its Wacipi powwow each August is free and open to the public.
Why it’s called Prior Lake
In 1852 William H. Calkins claimed land between Spring Lake and Long Lake, as Prior Lake was then called. Scott County was created the next year.
The railroad brought the new name. Charles H. Prior of Minneapolis was superintendent of the Minnesota divisions of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railway from 1871 to 1886. The railroad’s Hastings and Dakota line came through in 1871 and was finished in 1872, and the lake, the post office and then the village were all named for him. The Prior Lake post office opened in 1872 in the McColl brothers’ store, and the village was platted in 1875.
Nearby Spring Lake had been laid out as a village in hopes of getting a railroad. When the tracks went through Prior Lake instead, those hopes ended.
A small farm town
Settlers started arriving in the 1850s. The city’s history describes a farming town that grew little from 1870 into the 1920s, though it drew summer people to the lake.
Prior Lake incorporated as a village in 1891. To qualify, the town brought three farms inside its boundary, including the Lyons and Nauck farms.
Before there was a village, school met in a farmhouse and then a log building. The Presbyterian church, Prior Lake’s first, went up in 1897, and College Hill School followed in 1898, a red brick building for grades 1 to 10. Telephone service arrived in 1900, the volunteer fire department started in 1916 and electricity came in 1917.
In February 1908, St. Michael’s Catholic church was moved from Spring Lake to Prior Lake across the lake ice. The 1920s brought Prior Lake’s first woman mayor, Cora McQuestion. Otherwise, the city’s history says, the decade was quiet “outside of occasional visits by Twin City gangsters and some bootlegging.”
The Grainwood and the summer people
While the town grew slowly, visitors came for the Grainwood House, a resort hotel near the narrows between the upper and lower lakes. It opened on May 15, 1879, with a grand ball.
It could host about 150 guests, with cottages, a tennis court, a bowling alley, and sailboats, catamarans and canoes on the water. It had its own station on the Hastings and Dakota line, and it ran its own horse-drawn bus to meet trains on the Omaha line at Barden. Townspeople took the ferry across the narrows or walked the railroad tracks to get there.
The first guests were mostly well-to-do Southerners. After 1900, more came from Minneapolis and St. Paul. The Fourth of July brought a regatta, fireworks and music on the lake, and there were concerts on Sunday afternoons.
The Grainwood burned in 1894 and was rebuilt right away, bigger and better. The city’s downtown history calls it one of the finest resorts in Minnesota in its day. It faded after 1920, when resorts farther north drew the summer crowds, and fire destroyed it on April 8, 1930. The volunteer fire department saved the cottages, but the hotel was never rebuilt. The name is still around: there’s a Grainwood neighborhood, the city’s Grainwood Crossing fishing dock and the school district’s Educational Service Center at Grainwood.
By the 1930s, the city’s history says, Prior Lake had two sides: the summer cottage people around the lake and the year-round residents in town. From World War II to 1960 it grew at a moderate pace, with the lake as a major pastime.
From farm town to suburb
Prior Lake stayed small for a long time. By the city’s count it had 349 people in 1940 and 848 in 1960.
Then it took off: 4,127 people in 1970 and 7,284 in 1980 by the city’s figures, and 27,617 at the 2020 census. The city’s history says the lake and Highway 13 development did the most to drive that growth. The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community’s enterprises grew alongside it, starting with Little Six Bingo Palace in 1982.
The Metropolitan Council estimates 29,780 residents in 2025, the figure the city now shows. The Census Bureau’s 2025 estimate is 28,140. The Met Council forecasts about 31,500 people by 2040 and 34,400 by 2050.
I’ve lived in Prior Lake since 1986. I remember when County Road 42 was still gravel. I remember goats grazing on the hill heading down to Lakefront Park.
Schools grew with the town. In the 1930s Prior Lake teens went to high school in Farmington, boarding there during the week, and later in Shakopee. That changed in 1952, when District 719 opened the Prior Lake School for grades 1 to 12. A senior high school was built in 1966, and the current Prior Lake High School opened in Savage in 2003.
Key milestones
- 1852: William H. Calkins claims land between Spring Lake and Long Lake, as Prior Lake was then called.
- 1871 to 1872: The railroad comes through, and the lake is renamed for railroad superintendent Charles H. Prior. The Prior Lake post office opens in 1872.
- 1879: The Grainwood House opens on May 15, with room for about 150 guests and its own rail station.
- 1891: Prior Lake incorporates as a village.
- 1908: St. Michael’s Catholic church is moved across the lake ice from Spring Lake.
- 1930: The Grainwood Hotel burns on April 8 and is never rebuilt.
- September 2, 1945: A downtown parade celebrates the end of World War II.
- 1952: District 719 opens the Prior Lake School for grades 1 to 12. Before that, Prior Lake teens went to high school in Farmington and later Shakopee.
- 1960: The Prior Lake American starts publishing in October.
- 1966: A senior high school is built.
- 1969: The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community becomes a federally recognized tribe on November 28.
- 1982: Little Six Bingo Palace opens on October 16. The SMSC credits it with bringing high-stakes bingo to Minnesota.
- 1992: Mystic Lake Casino opens on May 12. The SMSC says it is now Scott County’s largest employer, with about 3,500 team members.
- 2003: The current Prior Lake High School opens in Savage.
- 2010: The Prior Lake Rotary puts on the first Lakefront Music Fest, then called the Lakefront Jazz and Blues Festival. It went to two nights in 2012 and now draws 32,000+ people, by the fest’s count.
- 2013: The U.S. Department of Education names the district one of its first Green Ribbon Sustainability Districts.
- 2017: Voters pass a $109.3 million school bond referendum.
- 2020: Hamilton Ridge Elementary opens, and a new activity center opens at the high school.
- 2024: The Prior Lake American prints its last issue on April 27, when Southwest News Media closes its papers.
The lake as the constant
Plenty has changed. The farms became subdivisions and the gravel roads became county highways. The log schoolhouse became a district that started the 2026-27 school year with 8,357 students. The Grainwood is a memory.
The lake is still the lake. Upper and Lower Prior together cover about 1,340 acres, with about 21 miles of shoreline. The DNR has kept ice records here since 1963. In a typical year the lake freezes around the end of November and the ice goes out in early April.
It still brings people together, too: the Polar Plunge at Sand Point in February, Lakefront Music Fest at Lakefront Park in July and fireworks over the water on the Fourth. For boat launches, beaches and fishing, see my guide to life on the lake.
Photo: canoeing on Prior Lake, about 1922. Minnesota State University, Mankato, via Minnesota Reflections, public domain.