Location
Owatonna is in Steele County OWATONNA, the county seat, earliest settled in 1854 and platted in September 1855, was incorporated as a town August 9, 1858, and as a city February 23, 1865. Its post office was established in 1855. The townsite is on land originally owned by A. B. Cornell, W. F. Pettit, and John Abbott, with 120 acres platted into 21 blocks and a public square; it had a station of the Chicago and North Western Railway. The township was organized, with its present area, February 27, 1857. This was the Dakota name of the Straight River, which is its translation. The river was mapped, but not named, on the map of Minnesota Territory in 1855; on the early state maps, in 1860 and 1869, it is called Owatonna River, but in 1870 it is named Straight River. Hear it pronounced in Dakota. From: Upham, Warren. Minnesota Place Names: A Geographical Encyclopedia. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, First edition 1920. Third Edition 2001. Print.
