The area around Clitherall Lake was the site of one of the earliest permanent European‑American settlements in Otter Tail County after the U.S.–Dakota War of 1862, when a group of Cutlerite Latter Day Saints migrated from Iowa to western Minnesota in 1865 to establish an agricultural colony on the lake’s north shore. The original settlement, often referred to as the Mormon or Cutlerite colony at Clitherall Lake, was organized around a communal religious community that emphasized self‑sufficiency, cooperative distribution of harvests, and peaceful relations with neighboring Indigenous communities.
Passages that mention Clitherall, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Otter Tail County, Minnesota1916 · page 589Read the page →
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After living one summer in Otter Tail county, the family homesteaded one hundred and sixty acres in section 20, of Clitherall township. At that time the nearest neighbors were four miles south and six miles northeast at the old village of Clitherall. The Hustad family had come here with two other families, those of Albert Knutson and Jens Larson Forlov. The FCnutson family settled two miles north and the Forlov family one and onefourth miles northwest of the Hustads. During the summer they had lived in a covered wagon and had laid up a supply of hay for the winter.
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1 ionic his education and in his early manhood he became a farmer on rented land in Floyd county, Iowa. In 1902 he moved to Otter Tail county, living near the village of Clitherall on a farm for one year. He then located in Elmo township, when . Minora was only a settlement. A number of buildings were then being erected, and in order to provide lodging for the workmen engaged on them Air. Home established a boarding house in a tent. He immediately began the erection of a hotel containing twelve rooms, the dimensions of the building being thirty by forty feet. He has been its
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Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Clitherall, 1864 to 1912
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (5), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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