Cloud, a city split between three counties, emerged from the union of three distinct cities: one founded by a slave-owning southerner, one founded by an abolitionist Protestant, and one created just to build a sawmill.
Direct your questions to the St. Cloud emerged from the tallgrass prairie that bordered hardwood forest. The landscape dictated the location of early settlements, as deep ravines divided one part of the area from another.
Upper Town was above the northern ravine along the Mississippi River; Lower Town was below the southern ravine; Middle Town was right between them. Settlement began in all three areas between and The first area to attract settlement was Upper Town. In Sylvanus B. Lowry, a transplant from Tennessee, made a land claim above the northern ravine. Lowry owned slaves and brought some with him, even though slavery was supposed to be off-limits in the Minnesota Territory.
Even as he developed his new city, which he named Acadia, he managed fur trading posts at Watab and Sauk Rapids and worked as an interpreter. In short order, other wealthy Southerners followed Lowry to Acadia.
When the Civil War began, however, Southerners abandoned Acadia and the city became an isolated residential community. At the opposite end of town and the opposite end of the cultural spectrum , George Fuller Brott a New Yorker bought a claim from squatter Martin Wooley to create Lower Town. He platted the site as St. Cloud City and attracted settlers from New England, most of whom were were committed abolitionist and temperance advocates. By , the city had a hundred buildings, including the Stearns Hotel which was a favored location for Southerners escaping the heat.
