History of Walker and Leech Lake

Founded

The village of Walker was founded on March 10, 1896, shortly after the railroad came from Brainerd to Walker. Cass County was one ten counties created out to the Minnesota Territory on May 1, 1851. Our county was named after Governor Lewis Cass, of the Michigan Territory. Cass along with Schoolcraft, led the famous expedition of 40 men to discover the true source of the Mississippi River in 1820.

The Ojibwe Legend of Leech Lake

Many moons before any Ojibwe can remember, when the only people across this land were a woman and her daughter, an evil spirit came down and captured the maiden. He carried her away to a great dry plain, left her there, and returned to live in his own wigwam of solid rock.

Confined to this place of loneliness and destitution, the maiden was visited by an emissary of Hiawatha - the Supreme Deity of the Indians. He gave her a peculiar black rock and told her to make it into a spear. Then he showed her where to strike it against the rocks of the great dry plain.

The maiden did as the Great Spirit had instructed, and at once a great soaring of water gushed out and flowed rapidly over the plain. It began to fill in all the vast space, and as it did, the maiden climbed higher and higher up the rocks until she reached the top. When the waters ceased to rise, the evil spirit was imprisoned some distance away in another part of the big rock, surrounded by water and compelled to remain there for all time.

One day, the Indian maiden escaped in a canoe which floated out to her from shore. The land on which she climbed was Bear Island, and the waters are how Leech Lake was formed.