Detroit Lakes and the city on its northern shore take their name from the French word “détroit,” meaning a narrow place in a lake, here referring to the bar that divides Little and Big Detroit Lakes. That sandbar, now covered by water, can still be traced about one mile away, and boats still use a marked channel to pass between the two lakes. Local tradition tells of a French priest traveling through the country who camped on the north shore of what is now Detroit Lake and, seeing the long outline of the bar glimmering in the setting sun, exclaimed at the beauty of the détroit. The first building in Detroit Lakes was a home built by Donald McDonald in 1854 just west of where the Pelican River enters Detroit Lake. When the Northwestern Pacific Railroad reached the area in 1871, it stopped at a small group of buildings then called Tyler Town on the eastern edge of today’s city, marking the humble beginning of the city of Detroit, Minnesota. That name remained until 1926, when it was changed to Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, to avoid increasing postal confusion with Detroit, Michigan. In the 1880s, the steamboat Lady of the Lakes, one of many steamboats on Detroit Lakes, picked up vacationers and visitors arriving by train from Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Chicago and carried them to Detroit and onward to Shoreham, Minnesota, on the Pelican River. Many early settlers in the area were Civil War veterans claiming 160 acres of homesteaded land. The Village of Detroit became the seat of Becker County in 1877 and was incorporated as a village in 1881.