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is a city in Blue Earth and Nicollet counties in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The population was 32,427 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Blue Earth County, and is located along a large bend of the Minnesota River at its confluence with the Blue Earth River. Mankato is located in Blue Earth County and neighbored by its sister city across the Minnesota River, North Mankato, and completely encompasses the town of Skyline.
Mankato is the larger of the two principal cities of the Mankato-North Mankato metropolitan area, which covers Blue Earth and Nicollet counties and had a combined population of 85,712 at the 2000 census. Mankato was designated a Metropolitan Statistical Area by the U.S. Census Bureau in November of 2008.
U.S. Routes 14 and 169 and Minnesota State Highways 22, and 60 are four of the main arterial routes in the city.
Mankato Township was first settled by Parsons King Johnson in February 1852, and the city of Mankato was organized on May 11, 1858. The city was organized by Henry Jackson, Parsons King Johnson, Col. D.A. Robertson, Justus C. Ramsey, and unnamed others. The city recently celebrated its sesquicentennial. A popular story says that the city was intended to have been named
, but a typographical error by a clerk established the name as Mankato. According to Upham, quoting historian Thomas Hughes of Mankato, "The honor of christening the new city was accorded to Mrs. P.K. Johnson and Mrs. Henry Jackson, who selected the name 'Mankato,' upon the suggestion of Col. Robertson. He had taken the name from Nicollet's book, in which the French explorer compared the 'Mahkato" or Blue Earth River, with all its tributaries, to the water nymphs and their uncle in the German legend of Undine.'...No more appropriate name could be given the new city, than that of the noble river at whose mouth it is located." While it may or may not be true that the city was intended to be called Mahkato, it is true that the Blue Earth River was called
It is said that the location of the city of Mankato was selected by Ishtakhaba, also known as Chief Sleepy Eye, of the Sisseton band of Dakota Indians. Ishtakhaba directed the settlers to a site at the confluence of the Minnesota and Blue Earth Rivers which was well suited for building and for river traffic, and yet safe from flooding.
On December 26, 1862, the largest mass execution in U.S. history occurred in Mankato following the Dakota War of 1862. Thirty-eight Dakota Native Americans were hanged for participation in the uprising; a total of 303 were sentenced to be hanged but President Lincoln pardoned 265 at the urging of Bishop Henry Benjamin Whipple. Lincoln's intervention was not popular at the time. Two commemorative statues are located on the site of the hangings (now home to the Blue Earth County Library and Reconciliation Park).
Former Vice President Schuyler Colfax died while traveling in Mankato on January 13, 1885.