The city of Bayport is located on the beautiful St. Croix River in Washington County, Minnesota, just two miles south of Stillwater and 30 miles east of Minneapolis. With a history steeped in lumber industries, Bayport was chosen for settlement by non-Natives as early as 1842, and was originally three separate villages named Baytown, Bangor, and Middletown. Almost from the start, the area thrived as a manufacturing center with local businesses such as the St. Croix Lumber Company (est. 1868) and the Andersen Lumber Company (est. 1897), now known as Andersen Windows, as well as furniture and box makers, printing houses, a brass foundry, an icehouse, and more. The Stillwater Dock Company, which manufactured and repaired steamboats, had a far-reaching reputation as the builders of the rafters Pauline, R. J. Wheeler, and Kit Carson. The arrival of the railroad connecting Stillwater to the villages in 1872, as well as the electric street car in 1889, supported the area’s manufacturing output by carrying cargo and visitors to nearby communities and as far as Milwaukee and Chicago. By 1873, the villages had grown enough that the residents decided to combine and incorporate as one village named “South Stillwater.” However, the name was often confused with that of neighboring Stillwater, and so the community changed it to “Bayport” in 1922. Bayport incorporated as a city in 1974.

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