The 32state to be admitted to the United States, May 11, 1858. The Falls of Saint Anthony were named in 1680 by the Recollect, Father Louis Hennepin, who had been carried into captivity with two companions by the Sioux Indians of the region, and was released by the explorer, Sieur Daniel Greysolon du Lhut. The first missionary work was done by Father Joseph Jacques Marest, S.J., who labored among the Sioux for about 10 years after accompanying Nicholas Perrot to their country in 1689. The latter had established Fort Perrot, later sometimes called Fort Bon Secours, on Lake Pepin near the present town of Wabasha in 1685. In 1727 Fort Beauharnois was built near the town of Frontenac by Rene Boucher who had in his train two Jesuits, Father Michel (Louis-Ignace) Guignas and Father Nicolas Le Gounor. Here the first little chapel of Minnesota was built and named in honor of Saint Michael the Archangel. The name is preserved In the chapel of the Ursuline Convent built on the new site of Fort Beauharnois, chosen for its height above the river in 1730. In 1732Fort Charles was built near the southern shores of the Lake of the Woods, and two Jesuit missionaries were sent there, Father Charles Mesaiger and Father Pierre Aulneau, the latter suffering death at the hands of the Indians in 1736. The permanent foundation of the Church was made only after the Americans had built Fort Snelling, first called Fort Saint Anthony, just above the confluence of the Saint Peter, or Minnesota, and the Mississippi, in 1822. A little group of Swiss Catholics from Canada having established a settlement a few miles below the fort, at Mendota, they were visited by Bishop Loras of Dubuque in 1839, and the next year he sent them a pastor, Father Lucian Galtier. His first chapel was a log hut given him by Jean Baptiste Faribault. In 1841 a site for a church on the opposite side of the river was given him by two settlers, Benjamin Gervais and Vital Guerin, and the log church built in honor of Saint Paul was the beginning of the modern city of the same name.

Catholic influence on the place-names of the state is shown in the following,

Ecclestiastical divisions include the archdiocese

and the dioceses,

See also,