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Section 2 2-2 Ramsey County Multijurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan | July 2012 Figure 2-1 Location Map of Ramsey County MN 2.2 Early History The passage of the bill creating the Minnesota Territory in the spring of 1849 immediately attracted settlers to the area. Nine counties were created later that year, Ramsey being one of them. The original Ramsey County boundary included all of the present-day counties of Ramsey, Anoka, Isanti, Kanabec and part of Washington, Pine, Carlton, Aitkin, Mille Lacs, and Hennepin. Flooding into St. Paul by steamboat, many people remained right in the city, but others established farms on the vacant land in what is now northern Ramsey County. The rise of the railroads after the Civil War made Ramsey County and St. Paul the transportation center of the Upper Midwest and the gateway to the Northwest. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the railroad's impact on the 19th century city and county. Toward the end of the century, an enormous network of rails linked St. Paul with Chicago and the Pacific. "Empire Builder" James J. Hill had reorganized the St. Paul, Manitoba and Pacific Railroads into the Great Northern and acquired operating control of the bankrupt Northern Pacific. In addition, at least 10 other lines were serving the region. Some eight million people passed through St. Paul's Union Depot in 1888, a peak year, with 150 trains arriving and departing daily. At the same time, much of the land in northern Ramsey County had remained farmland. During the last decades of the 19th century, villages began to spring up in this section of Ramsey County. New Brighton was founded in 1887, North St. Paul in the late 1880s and Roseville in the 1870s. White Bear Lake dates back to the 1850s.