History of Wabasha, Minnesota

In March of 1849 an act of Congress established the Minnesota Territory. Seven months later the first Territorial Legislature met and created nine counties, Wabasha County being one of them. The original boundary of Wabasha County was from just south of Stillwater, Minnesota extending west to the Missouri River with the southern boundary being the present-day Iowa border.

Wabasha is one of the oldest cities along the Mississippi, having been continuously occupied since 1826. It would be 1843 before the settlement would be named Wabasha, after Chief Wa-pa-shaw III.

In 1842 Fr. Augustin Ravoux put a log cabin on a raft in Mendota and floated it down the Mississippi to Wabasha where it would first be used as a chapel. In 1855 the log cabin, which was placed where Main Street now terminates, would be used as a school, and in 1857 the first paper published in Wabasha was printed in that building.

St. Felix Catholic Church, dating back to 1842, is one of the oldest church organizations in Minnesota. The present structure was rebuilt in 1893, having been destroyed by fire in 1874. The Catholic Church was also instrumental in founding St. Elizabeth's Hospital in 1898, St. Joseph's Orphanage in 1900 and St. Felix School in 1920. Thomas Irvine built Grace Episcopal Church in 1900 as a gift in memory of his wife, Emily Hills Irvine, who was the daughter of a former rector of the parish. The chancel window of this church, which depicts the two Marys at the tomb on Easter morning, was made by Tiffany of New York at a cost of $3,000.00.