McLeod County
Chalupsky’s Brewery, Silver Lake, 1886 – Courtesy of McLeod County Historical Society
Locations where Poles settled in McLeod County include:
Towns: Silver Lake (initially known as Fremont)
Townships: Hale Township
County-Wide Resources
Vital Records and Land Records
The Mcleod County Recorder of Deeds maintains Land records.
The McLeod County License Center is responsible for birth, marriage and death records.
Historical Society and Museum
The Historical Society/Museum preserves artifacts and historical information related to McLeod County and its people.
U.S. Bureau of Land Management
The U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management has General Land Office Records where you can pick the state and county, then type a surname. If an ancestor purchased land, you will likely be able to see the document and details about the land and purchase.
General Genealogy Links
The following are websites with general resources and genealogy information about McLeod County:
PGS-MN Newsletter Article
(You will need to scroll down to the page indicated to find the article within the newsletter link)
| newsletter | page | title/author |
|---|---|---|
| Spring 1997 | 10 | Polish Catholic Churches in Minnesota: Part 2 – Polish Catholic Churches in the Diocese of New UIm (continued) by Paul Kulas |
Map
Plat maps are helpful in showing who owned the land that year. Click on the area you are interested in until you get to the detail level with names.
Silver Lake
The majority of Poles who immigrated to Silver Lake came from villages in the Poznań area, beginning in the early 1870’s. With the border changes over the years, some of those villages are now located in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian area of Poland (originally in the Bydgoszcz Voivodeship). Soon after the Poles began arriving, Bohemians from the Czech Republic began settling along side of them. The Poles ran the stores, sawmills, flour mill and brewery. The Great Northern Railroad built the railroad which connected Silver Lake to Minneapolis in 1887. This brought even more Poles to the area.
Local History Links
General Genealogy Links
The following are websites with general resources and genealogy information about Silver Lake:
PGS-MN Newsletter Articles
(You will need to scroll down to the page indicated to find the article within the newsletter link)
| Newsletter | page | title/author |
|---|---|---|
| Spring 1997 | 10 | Polish Catholic Churches in Minnesota: Part 2- Polish Catholic Churches in the Diocese of New UIm (continued) Parishes in Mcleod County by Paul Kulas |
| Winter 2003 | 10 | Drobne Echa Article – Installment #3 Silver Lake: From Katolik,1894 by Greg Kishel |
| Spring 2008 | 29 | My Polish Connections to Silver Lake, Minnesota by William R. Graczyk |
| Spring 2009 | 9 | Where My Polish Immigrant Ancestors Settled by William R. Graczyk |
| Summer 2014 | 1 | Missing Records for Polish Ancestors of Silver Lake/Hale, Minnesota William R. Graczyk |
Silver Lake Book
| title | author | comments |
|---|---|---|
| Silver Lake: A History in Pictures | Anthony J. Kadlec, 2012 | Link to order the book |