Eagle City, Minnesota, was settled in 1858 at the halfway point on the Henderson to Fort Ridgely Trail, the same year Minnesota became a state. A. (Michael) Cummings built a tavern and hotel that also became a United States Post Office, and Eagle City became a rest stop with food and drink for both stagecoach passengers and horses. The Cummings Hotel was destroyed by fire in 1862 during the Indian Wars. After the Civil War, Cummings rebuilt the tavern and hotel and again served as postmaster from his home a short distance west of the hotel. From the 1870's to 1881, Ole Olson was postmaster at his home 2 miles north of Eagle City. In 1880, news came that a railroad would be built west through Sibley County, and settlers moved quickly to make sure it passed through the Eagle City vicinity. Erick and Brita Olson, who had homesteaded the land on which the city was platted, deeded 45 acres for the town site. The railroad bed was completed in the late fall of 1881, and the first train arrived on Christmas Eve in 1881. E.A. Campbell, a railroad man, named the rail station Winthrop.