Swedish immigrants seeking land and opportunity helped found and shape Lindström and the surrounding Chisago Lakes community in Minnesota. Daniel Larsson Lindström, born in Hassela Parish, Sweden, came to America in 1853 with settlers from that parish and claimed the only remaining local land, a 130-acre parcel west of his half-brother Per Anderson's farm. Because he spoke very little English, Eric Norelius accompanied him to the Land Office in Stillwater to file the claim. Lindström first lived in a log cabin overlooking Lindström Lake, cleared the land, and raised mainly corn and potatoes while supplementing his food with game and fish. After the death of his first wife, Brita Danielsdotter, in 1864, he built a house that later became a bakery and today houses a real-estate business; in 1866 he married Johanna Persdotter, and they raised five children. Over the following decades he subdivided and sold his land, which was incorporated in 1894 as the Village of Lindström, and he served for more than twenty years as constable of Chisago Lake Township while taking an active role in the town's political and educational life. Per Andersson, born in Hassela Parish in 1817, led the group that established the first permanent Swedish settlement in Minnesota in April 1851, using proceeds from the sale of his large farm in Sweden to make the journey possible for about 100 family members, friends, and neighbors. Traveling north from Illinois by way of the Mississippi and St. Croix Rivers, the group landed at Taylors Falls and walked inland to what is now Center City. Though initially the wealthiest traveler, Andersson reached Minnesota nearly broke after helping others along the way. He later lived in Red Wing, moved with his wife Karin Danielsdotter and their two sons to Freeborn County in 1858, returned to Chisago County in 1864, and after years of farming and living with relatives and their son Daniel, drowned in the Rum River in 1881. A leader in county politics and religious life, he was the first Lutheran layman to preach in the new Chisago Lake church and performed the baptism of the settlement's firstborn child, his daughter Kristina. Eric Andersson Norelius, who arrived in the Chisago Lakes area at age 18 in 1851 after serving a Swedish Lutheran church community in Chicago, became a major figure in the development of the Swedish Lutheran Church in America. After further theological study, he helped establish the Chisago Lake Lutheran Church in Center City, founded orphanages in Vasa for children of deceased Swedish immigrants that later became Minnesota Lutheran Social Services, helped found the Augustana Swedish Lutheran Synod in 1860 and served several terms as its president, and in 1862 founded a school for the children of Swedish immigrants that later moved to St. Peter and became Gustavus Adolphus College. He also edited Swedish-language newspapers, including the Swedish-language Chicago Tribune and Minnesota small-town papers. In a later era, James Louis Oberstar, Minnesota's longest-serving congressman from 1975 to 2011, was credited with improving mining safety and transportation, including safety improvements on the Highway 8 corridor from Forest Lake to Taylors Falls that reduced accident frequency and severity after 57 deaths there between 1974 and 1989.