Hype for the Future 86L: Lincoln, Lyon, and Yellow Medicine Counties

Introduction

The three most Icelandic counties in the State of Minnesota, known as Lincoln, Lyon, and Yellow Medicine Counties, are each located south of the Minnesota River and along or relatively nearby to the South Dakota state line. The county seats are Ivanhoe in Lincoln County, Marshall in Lyon County, and Granite Falls in Yellow Medicine County.

Attractions — Lyon County

Within Lyon County, Marshall serves as the county seat and is home to the Whitney Statue and the Lyon County Museum. Tracy, located further southeast, is notable for the Cinnamon Hen and the Wheels Across the Prairie Museum.

Attractions — Lincoln County

While the community of Ivanhoe serves as the county seat and is the smallest county seat in the State of Minnesota, Lincoln County is also home to the community of Lake Benton, including the associated Heritage Center, in the south and the Swanson Lake Bottom in the north.

Attractions — Yellow Medicine County

On the western edge of Yellow Medicine County, the community of Canby is home to the Lund Hoel House. On the eastern edge is the Wood Lake Battlefield and associated monument, with the surrounding areas home to the Memorials and Centennial Time Capsule, Minnesota’s Machinery Musem, and the Fagen Fighters WWII Museum. The Prairie’s Edge Casino Resort is also situated nearby, though further downstream from the county seat of Granite Falls along the Minnesota River.

Granite Falls is located primarily in Yellow Medicine County and serves as the county seat. The vast majority of the community is located in Yellow Medicine, with the Andrew J. Volstead House Museum, the Veterans Memorial, the River Walk Murals, and Carl’s Bakery as notable attractions.

Hype for the Future 86K: Counties of Icelandic Minnesotans

Introduction

Though Icelandic Minnesotans are extremely rare in the modern State of Minnesota, the vast majority of such Icelandic settlers were largely associated with three (3) counties in the State: Lyon, Lincoln, and Yellow Medicine. Each of these counties is south of the Minnesota River, or perhaps more accurately, southwest, broadly along the western line of the State with South Dakota.

Identifying Icelandic Minnesotans

Numerous early Minnesotan church records would have recorded Icelandic origins in the surnames in the region. Following Anglo-American naming practices and conventions, the Icelandic-American population would almost entirely keep the male line as the family name, which the Icelandic population has traditionally never been known for having in a fixed form yet had been forced to develop upon immigration to the United States of America. Therefore, for ancestral and genealogical records largely centered around Lyon, Lincoln, and Yellow Medicine Counties, the most important resources are in the patrilineal ancestry of associated individuals of Icelandic stock.