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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
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Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

We have a couple of goals for our Gazetteer:

  • That it be a tool which helps us with planning our trips.
  • We're trying to shape our Gazetteer as a tool to help us understand the community in which our ancestors lived, the community that was part of their daily lives.
  • On our trips, we try to visit those places where our ancestors left their footprints.

By learning about Oak Park (and the surrounding area) during the time that our ancestors lived, we hope to have a better understanding of both their community and its relationship to their lifes. We hope that this tool helps to give us an insight into their world.

As we add data and organize our Gazetteer to help with our family research, we will be adding to this our Genealogical Helper for Oak Park. While we don't have information that is specific to any given person or family, we intend to expand our understanding about where and how people lived.

Neighboring Counties ...

When searching for family records, we have frequently made the mistake of not checking the neighboring counties.

For example, we have great-grandparents who lived in the southwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals were in the next county to the west. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the south.

So when searching for records, we had our best success by looking in neighboring counties instead of the county in which they lived:  their home county contained property and probate records; the county to the west contained birth and death records; the county to the south contained their burial records. If we hadn't included the neighboring counties, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

If you're in a similar situation, we hope that the following information helps.

Oak Park is located in Benton County.

To see how the shape of Minnesota's counties may have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Benton County: Isanti, Mille Lacs, Morrison, Sherburne & Stearns.

Below are the counties that are near Oak Park. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Oak Park:

  • Benton County     (The home county of Oak Park)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Oak Park, with the one closest to Oak Park listed first.
    • Ronneby
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southwest)
      • Ronneby is located in Benton County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ronneby
    • Foley
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southwest)
    • Gilman
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
    • Duelm
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Watab
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
    • Sauk Rapids
      (18 miles [29 km] to the southwest)
    • Evergreen Village
      (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
      • Evergreen Village is located in Benton County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Evergreen Village
    • Rice
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
      • Rice is located in Benton County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rice
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,401 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Rice <1>
  • Anoka County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Oak Park, with the one closest to Oak Park listed first.
    • Nowthen
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
      • Nowthen is located in Anoka County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Nowthen
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 4,732 people
    • Saint Francis
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Isanti County
  • Kanabec County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Oak Park, with the one closest to Oak Park listed first.
    • Ogilvie
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Coin
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
    • Mora
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)
  • Mille Lacs County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Oak Park, with the one closest to Oak Park listed first.
    • Foreston
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
    • Estes Brook
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Pease
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
      • Pease is located in Mille Lacs County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pease
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 224 people
    • Milaca
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northeast)
      • Milaca is located in Mille Lacs County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Milaca
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,899 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Milaca <1>
    • Bock
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northeast)
      • Bock is located in Mille Lacs County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bock
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 108 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Bock <1>
    • Princeton
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Onamia
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
  • Morrison County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Oak Park, with the one closest to Oak Park listed first.
    • Ramey
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Morrill
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Buckman
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
      • Buckman is located in Morrison County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Buckman
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 273 people
    • Hillman
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
    • Genola
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
      • Genola is located in Morrison County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Genola
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 66 people
    • Pierz
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
      • Pierz is located in Morrison County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pierz
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,364 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Pierz <1>
    • Royalton
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
    • Lastrup
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)
    • North Prairie
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the west)
    • Bowlus
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
    • Harding
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)
  • Sherburne County
  • Stearns County
  • Wright County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Oak Park, with the one closest to Oak Park listed first.
    • Clearwater
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Hasty
      (23 miles [37 km] to the south)
    • Monticello
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
    • Silver Creek
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
      • Silver Creek is located in Wright County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Silver Creek

For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Oak Park, see our County-by-County Page for Oak Park.

Cemeteries Near Oak Park ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Oak Park.

This is a new section and is likely to have errors. If you find an error, such as a missing cemetery or we have the wrong name, please let us know. If you know of them, we would also appreciate learning about previous or alternate names.

Although we don't have the information ourselves, if you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our list of websites on our Genealogy Helper Page for Oak Park - one of the links might be able to help.

If not found below, our Cemetery List for Oak Park covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Oak Park, with the one closest to Oak Park listed first.

Nearby Communities in 1895 ...

We've built the following list with information that came from an Atlas published by Rand McNally in 1895. The Atlas had details such as the population of the community (which appears to have come from the 1890 Census) and whether there was a post office and/or railroad service available. We also indicate if the community no longer exists and is now historic.<3>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that in 1895, Oak Park had a post office and railroad service.

These communities are listed based on their distance from Oak Park, with the one closest to Oak Park listed first.

We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Oak Park. See our List of 1890's Communities around Oak Park.

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Oak Park ...

An ongoing effort between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has resulted in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

To share their results, the partnership has created the Chronicling America website. The goal of this partnership is to assemble a database about the current and historic newspapers of the United States. This includes a growing collection of scanned images from selected papers. All of it available to the public on their website.

Using information that we've taken from the Chronicling America website, we've identified 97 newspapers that have been published in the area around Oak Park.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Oak Park. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Oak Park and those printed in the larger area surrounding Oak Park.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<4> of Oak Park.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first visit the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These websites offer the information directly or else point to where you can find it. Their information is open to everyone.

To help you get started, the following links will take you to the pages that are relevant to Oak Park:

Footnotes ...

<1>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<2>The Find-a-Grave website is an excellent research tool with information about a cemetery's location and interments. They also offer a forum for their members which can provide additional help. More information about Find-a-Grave can be found on their website: findagrave.com.
<3>We use the term 'Historic' broadly and it generally means that the community no longer exists. However, it can also mean that the community might still exist, but was significantly larger or had a more 'official' existence in the past than it does now. Unfortunately our sources of data have proven to be unreliable. If you can provide us with more specific information about Oak Park, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Oak Park) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.