Lake Elmo celebrates centennial with festival, flyover, fireworks

The small, but beautiful, body of water midway between St. Paul and Stillwater was known in the mid-1800s for its clear water and good fishing.

Locals called it Bass Lake. Today it’s known as Lake Elmo, and the village this weekend is celebrating its centennial, complete with a fireworks display.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will start at 5 p.m. Saturday at Lions Park with a flyover from the Commemorative Air Force of South St. Paul.

Mayor Charles Cadenhead will speak at 5:40 p.m. The event also will include food trucks, a beer and seltzer trailer and a street dance with live music from Tyte Phitt before concluding with a 9 p.m. fireworks display.

Cadenhead said he and other Lake Elmo officials look forward to “highlighting the small-town charm that Lake Elmo has preserved while moving forward confidently.”

“The first time I ran for mayor, I ran on trying to bring Lake Elmo together as a community and bringing people together as neighbors,” said Cadenhead, who has been mayor since 2021. “This is one of those events, like our Fourth of July parade and National Night Out, that’s an opportunity for community members to get together and enjoy time together and smile and laugh and just get to know each other better.”

Lake Elmo history

But how did Bass Lake become Lake Elmo?

Both the lake and village were renamed Lake Elmo in 1879 by railroad promoter and St. Paul businessman Alpheus B. Stickney, said Brent Peterson, executive director of the Washington County Historical Society.

Stickney was the vice president, general manager and chief counsel of the St. Paul, Stillwater & Taylors Falls Railroad Co. In 1872, crews from the railroad laid tracks through the area of Bass Lake.

“They put the tracks there because it was a recreational area away from the big city – just like Forest Lake or White Bear Lake,” Peterson said. “It wasn’t a big metropolis, but there were people there on the lake. When the railroad came, it became a much more desirable location.”

Stickney, acting on behalf of the railroad, bought land along the northeast shore, and built a 58-room hotel, according to the book “Memories of Lake Elmo” by Gloria VanDemmeltraadt, published in 2013.

It is Stickney’s wife, Kate, who was fascinated with the character St. Elmo Murray, from a book published in 1866, who gets credit for the name change.

“The novel, ‘St. Elmo,’ by Augusta Jane Evans, was captivating the country and its hero, St. Elmo Murray, was described as ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know,’” VanDemmeltraadt wrote. “Elmo was a dashing and popular name at the time, and Kate Stickney influenced her husband to rename both the lake and the accompanying village ‘Lake Elmo.’”

People would take the 12-mile train ride from St. Paul’s Union Depot to Lake Elmo to stay at the hotel for the weekend – a trip that took 25 minutes and cost 10 cents in 1889, according to VanDemmeltraadt.