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Anoka County Multi-Jurisdictional All Hazards Mitigation Plan 31 City of Blaine Blaine is located in the south central portion of Anoka County. Its longitude and latitude coordinates are 45.10 N and 93.12 W. It has a land area of 33.9 square miles and an elevation of 900 feet. Phillip Laddy, a native of Ireland, is recognized as the first settler in Blaine. He settled near the lake that now bears his name, Laddie Lake, in 1862. Laddy died shortly after his arrival and his survivors moved on to Minneapolis. He was followed by Englishman George Townsend, who lived for a short time in the area of Lever Street and 103rd Avenue. It was not until 1865, that Blaine's first permanent resident, Green Chambers settled on the old Townsend claim. Chambers was a former slave who moved north from Barron County, Kentucky, following the Civil War. In 1870, George Wall, Joseph Gagner, and some others settled in the area an d it began to grow. In 1877, Blaine separated from Anoka and organized as a Township of its own. That year, the first election was held and Moses Ripley was elected as the first Chairman of the Board of Supervisors. Ripley, who had come to Minnesota from Maine, persuaded his fellow Board Members to name the new Township in honor of James G. Blaine, a senator and three-time presidential candidate from Maine. By the year 1880, Blaine's population had reached 128. While many of the other communities in Anoka County experienced growth due to farming, Blaine's sandy soils and abundant wetlands discouraged would-be farmers, and it remained a prime hunting area. Blaine's growth remained slow until after World War II when starter home developments began to spring up in the southern part of town. Blaine's population went from 1,694 in 1950 to 20,640 in 1970. As the Minneapolis/St. Paul area began to enjoy rapid growth, Blaine's wide-open spaces became attractive to many people looking for the suburban life style just a short distance from both downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul. With the development of Interstate 35-W, State Highway 65, and State Highway 10, Blaine's accessibility to the Twin Cities was greatly improved. Blaine is one of the metro area’s largest suburbs. The Anoka County Airport is located in Blaine, which is the Metro Area's busiest reliever airport. Blaine is also home of Minnesota’s Olympic-class facility; the National Sports Center (NSC), an athletic and convention facility and designed for training, competition and accommodating a variety of activities and events. The NSC hosts the USA Cup, the world’s fourth largest youth soccer tournament each July. New to the NSC is the Schwann’s Super Rink with four Olympic sized ice sheets under one roof. The NSC draws over 2.6 million people to Blaine each year. New in 2000 is the TPC of the Twin Cities, a private 18-hole professional golf course, designed and owned by the PGA. This course is home to the 3M Senior Classic. City of Centerville Centerville is located in the eastern part of Anoka County at Latitude 45.16 N and Longitude – 93.05 W and an elevation of 899 feet. The city has a total area of 1,597 acres (2.2 square miles.) Located between the shores of Peltier Lake and Centerville Lake. The two lakes are used as a water supply for the city of St. Paul in drought situations. It is a suburb of Minneapolis/St. Paul and is located 20 minutes from St. Paul. Centerville is totally surrounded by the city of Lino Lakes. Centerville settled in 1850-52, was organized in 1857 and incorporated on September 27, 1910. Its village of this name, thence given to the township, was platted in the spring of 1854, having a central situation between the Mississippi and St. Croix Rivers. The settlers in the village and vicinity were mostly French, and this came to be known as the French settlement, while