This article: Henry Hastings Sibley built the first stone house in the Minnesota Territory in Mendota in 1838, along with other limestone buildings used by the American Fur Company, which bought animal pelts at that location from 1825 to 1853.  Another area of early economic development in Minnesota was the logging industry.  Loggers found the white pine especially valuable, and it was plentiful in the northeastern section of the state and in the St. Croix River valley.  Before railroads, lumbermen relied mostly on river transportation to bring logs to market, which made Minnesota's timber resources attractive.  Towns like Pine City, Marine on St. Croix and Stillwater became important lumber centers fed by the St. Croix River, while Winona was supplied lumber by areas in southern Minnesota and along the Minnesota River. The unregulated logging practices of the time and a severe drought took their toll in 1894, when the Great Hinckley Fire ravaged 480 square miles (1,200 km2) in the Hinckley and Sandstone areas of Pine County, killing over 400 residents. The combination of logging and drought struck again in the Baudette Fire of 1910 and the Cloquet Fire of 1918.
Saint Anthony, on the east bank of the Mississippi River later became part of Minneapolis, and was an important lumber milling center supplied by the Rum River.  In 1848, businessman Franklin Steele built the first private sawmill on the Saint Anthony Falls, and more sawmills quickly followed. The oldest home still standing in Saint Anthony is the Ard Godfrey house, built in 1848, and lived in by Ard and Harriet Godfrey.  The house of John H. Stevens, the first house on the west bank in Minneapolis, was moved several times, finally to Minnehaha Park in south Minneapolis in 1896. contains an answer for the question: What is the first name of the person who owned the home that was moved several times?, what is it ?


John