Pequot Lakes, Minnesota

Pequot Lakes (/ˈpiːkwɑːt ˈleɪks/ PEE-kwaht LAYKS) is a city in Crow Wing County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 2,162 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Brainerd Micropolitan Statistical Area.

History

According to the Pequot Lakes Heritage Preservation Commission, the city once called Sibley and Frogtown was renamed as Pequot. In 1900, Walter and Flora Brown filed their plat for the E 1/2 of the SW 1/4 section 10 in T136N-R29W under the title Pequot. The Pequot Indians are a tribe that used to dominate southeastern New England before the English colonists arrived. While no Pequot tribe members lived in Minnesota, they spoke an Algonquian language related to that of the local Chippewa (Ojibwe) tribes. Herman Melville named his lead ship in his novel Moby-Dick as the Pequod.

Two possible explanations for the town's name arise:

1. The local historian Carl Zapffe suggests that a variation of the Chippewa word for arrow (bikwas), as listed by Father Barroga in his Chippewa dictionary, gave rise to the word Pequot.