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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 Willow Creek (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 Willow Creek. 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.

Name Variations for Willow Creek ...

When searching records, keep in mind that names and their spelling can change over time. Our sources include documents like maps, railroad schedules, Travel, Express and Shipping Guides. Many of these documents date from the 1800's and it's common to find spelling differences.

For example, a typical abbreviation for Willow Creek: Willow Crk. (or less commonly used: Willow Ck. or Willow Cr.)

You might be interested in other communities that are also named Willow Creek. More information can be found on our Tidbits & Trivia Page for Willow Creek.

If you have information about these names (such as the reason for the change, date of change, the origin of the name), please Contact Us.

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 northwest 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 north.

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 north 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.

Willow Creek is located in Blue Earth 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 Blue Earth County: Brown, Faribault, Le Sueur, Martin, Nicollet, Waseca & Watonwan.

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

  • Blue Earth County     (The home county of Willow Creek)
  • Brown County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Willow Creek, with the one closest to Willow Creek listed first.
    • Hanska
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northwest)
    • Searles
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)
      • Searles is located in Brown County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Searles
    • New Ulm
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)
  • Faribault County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Willow Creek, with the one closest to Willow Creek listed first.
    • Winnebago
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Huntley
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
    • Delavan
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southeast)
      • Delavan is located in Faribault County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Delavan
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 166 people
    • Blue Earth
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southeast)
    • Easton
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southeast)
      • Easton is located in Faribault County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Easton
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 183 people
    • Minnesota Lake
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
    • Dell
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Frost
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
      • Frost is located in Faribault County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Frost
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 181 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Frost <1>
    • Wells
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
      • Wells is located in Faribault County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wells
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,157 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Wells <1>
    • Elmore
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
      • Elmore is located in Faribault County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Elmore
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 613 people
  • Martin County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Willow Creek, with the one closest to Willow Creek listed first.
    • Truman
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
      • Truman is located in Martin County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Truman
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,028 people
    • Northrop
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
    • Granada
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
    • Fairmont
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Ormsby
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
      • Ormsby is located in Martin County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ormsby
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 121 people
    • Welcome
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southwest)
    • Trimont
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Sherburn
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Ceylon
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Nicollet County
  • Waseca County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Willow Creek, with the one closest to Willow Creek listed first.
    • Alma City
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
    • Waldorf
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
      • Waldorf is located in Waseca County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Waldorf
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 224 people
  • Watonwan County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Willow Creek, with the one closest to Willow Creek listed first.
    • Lewisville
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
      • Lewisville is located in Watonwan County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lewisville
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 244 people
    • Madelia
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Grogan
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Saint James
      (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
    • La Salle
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
      • La Salle is located in Watonwan County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Salle
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 86 people
    • Godahl
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
      • Godahl is located in Watonwan County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Godahl
    • Odin
      (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
    • Butterfield
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the west)
      • Butterfield is located in Watonwan County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Butterfield
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 582 people
    • Darfur
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
      • Darfur is located in Watonwan County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Darfur
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 102 people

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

Cemeteries Near Willow Creek ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Willow Creek.

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 Willow Creek - one of the links might be able to help.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Willow Creek, with the one closest to Willow Creek 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 Willow Creek had a population of 40 people in 1895 with a post office and no railroad service.

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

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

Newspapers Published in Willow Creek ...

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 90 newspapers that have been published in the area around Willow Creek.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Willow Creek, there are papers which were published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Willow Creek.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we start with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These websites either 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 Willow Creek:

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 Willow Creek, 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 obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Willow Creek) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.