The Cloquet Connection

It’s a curious thing, but nearly everywhere I go I run into someone who knows someone from my hometown, Cloquet, Minn. Is it only me (and my sisters), or does this happen to anyone else? Not necessarily knowing someone from Cloquet, but regularly meeting new people who know someone from your hometown.

It happened again just last week.  I attended a Nordic Genealogy Conference in Inver Grove Heights, Minn., where I met a woman who had started taking Norwegian language lessons, and was telling me about a book she was reading in Norwegian that was about a murder on Minnesota’s North Shore. Similar to “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” series, there are three books that are being translated from Norwegian to English (“The Minnesota Trilogy” by Vidor Sundstol). During our conversation, she asked me where I was from. As soon as I told her I grew up in Cloquet, she asked me if I knew so-and-so. Nope, name didn’t ring a bell. Then she asked if I knew another so-and-so; again, no.  

About six years ago I worked downtown Minneapolis and would ride the bus home with the same group of people every evening. One night the fact that I was from Cloquet came up, and one of the guys said, “My barber’s from Cloquet.” I asked what his name was, expecting to have never heard of his barber, which is usually the case. But this time I not only knew the guy, I’d gone through grade school, junior high and high school with him (Hi, Monte!).

When I lived in Cloquet, the population was around 12,000. A small town, yes, but still too large to know everyone living there−particularly if they didn’t have kids that went to school with me or any of my siblings. I’ve known people who’ve lived in Cloquet most of, if not all of their lives. And yet there must be wanderlust for many residents, because they know so many people from so many different places.

My youngest sister (or as she likes to say, my much younger sister) works at St. Joseph’s Hospital downtown St. Paul as a CT Tech. While making small talk with patients, she often meets people who know someone from Cloquet. The topic usually comes up because she can pronounce their Finnish surnames correctly, and they ask her where she’s from. Most of the time, she doesn’t know the family in question, but sometimes she does.

My other sister lives in Richmond, Va. Seated next to someone she didn’t know at a friend’s dinner party, it turned out he went to college in Minnesota and his roommate was  from, yes, Cloquet. While she didn’t personally know the roommate, she knew I went to high school with his brother.

Does this happen to other people from other towns, or is this a Cloquet connection?

Jessica Lange and professional hockey players Cory Millen, Derek Plante and Jamie Langenbrunner may be the most well-known former residents of Cloquet, but the rest of us seem to know a lot of people. 

Even if you don’t know them, people from your hometown are like family; there’s a connection, a shared history.

The original Cloquet water tower, built in 1908 and torn down in 2004

Built in 2004, new Cloquet water tower holds 1,000,000-gallons of water

Gordy's Hi-Hat, famous for their burgers since 1960

The only gas station designed by Frank Lloyd Wright
was built in Cloquet in 1956

The 1904 Northeastern Hotel on Dunlap Island was used as a
hospital and shelter after the 1918 Cloquet Fire

What is the farthest place you've ever been and met someone who knows someone from your hometown?


LLet me help you find out what parts of history your family played
a role in.

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Photos taken by Pamela J. Erickson. Released into the public domain May 1, 2013, 

as long as acknowledgement included.