Ham Lake

The following is the text of a plaque hanging on the front of the church. It was placed there by an Eagle Scout completing his Eagle project in the... spring of 2005. It provides an accurate portrayal of the history of the church which was collected from personal accounts and the Anoka County historical records. "This church, the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ham Lake as it is called on the National Register of Historic Places, has a rich history. Founded in 1872, the building was constructed on land donated by Johan and Fredrika Magnuson shortly after their daughters Alida and Emilia died of typhoid fever and a need for a cemetery was realized. Originally laid to rest in their front yard, when the church was completed the two coffins were moved and became the first graves in the cemetery. When the church was first built there were no local pastors, thus, whenever the families in the church wanted to hold a service someone would have to travel to Anoka to pick up the pastor and bring him back.
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Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state on May 11, 1858. Known as the "Land of 10,000 Lakes", the state's name comes from a Dakota word for "sky-tinted water". Those waters, together with forests, parks, and wilderness areas, offer residents and tourists a variety of outdoor recreational... opportunities. Minnesota is the 12th most extensive and the 21st most populous of the U.S. states. Nearly 60% of its residents live in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area , the center of transportation, business, industry and education and home to an internationally known arts community. The remainder of the state consists of western prairies now given over to intensive agriculture; deciduous forests in the southeast, now cleared, farmed and settled; and the less populated North Woods, used for mining, forestry, and recreation. Minnesota is known for its relatively mixed social and political orientations, and has a high rate of civic participation and voter turnout.
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