Map of Sauk Centre city

Sauk Centre is a city in Stearns County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 4,555 at the 2020 census. Sauk Centre is part of the St. Cloud Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Sauk Centre is the birthplace of Sinclair Lewis, a novelist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. It inspired his fictional Gopher Prairie, the setting of Lewis’s 1920 novel Main Street. There are two sculptures of Lewis in Sauk Centre; one life size sculpture just outside the public library named after him and a bust, sculpted by Joseph Kiselewski, inside the library.

Sauk Centre city overview:
Name:	Sauk Centre city
LSAD Code:	25
LSAD Description:	city (suffix)
State:	Minnesota
County:	Stearns County
Founded:	1863
Elevation:	1,250 ft (381 m)
Total Area:	4.08 sq mi (10.58 km²)
Land Area:	4.08 sq mi (10.57 km²)
Water Area:	0.00 sq mi (0.01 km²)
Total Population:	4,555
Population Density:	1,116.15/sq mi (430.91/km²)
ZIP code:	56378
Area code:	320
FIPS code:	2758648
GNISfeature ID:	0651233
Website:	saukcentre.gov

Online Interactive Map

Sauk Centre online map. Source: Basemap layers from Google Map, Open Street Map (OSM), Arcgisonline, Wmflabs. Boundary Data from Database of Global Administrative Areas.

Sauk Centre location map. Where is Sauk Centre city?

Sauk Centre location on the U.S. Map. Where is Sauk Centre city. — Sauk Centre location on the U.S. Map.

Sauk Centre location on the Minnesota map. Where is Sauk Centre city. — Location of Sauk Centre in Minnesota.

History

The town was originally named by a lottery. The eight original town shareholders submitted suggestions for a name, and Sauk Centre was selected. The name was submitted by Alexander Moore, who originally bought and platted the town. Sauk refers to the many place names associated with the Sauk tribe (Sauk River, Sauk Rapids, Little Sauk, Osakis, etc). Centre (the British spelling of “center”) refers to the town’s central location between Sauk Rapids and Lake Osakis. When the Sauk Centre post office was established it used the spelling “Sauk Center”, until 1936 when the city won its fight to spell the name as Moore suggested. Local lore has it that five refugees from the Sauk tribe had been killed by settlers in an ambush on the shores of Lake Osakis 17 miles (27 km) away.

Sauk Centre contains the Sinclair Lewis Boyhood Home, a National Historic Landmark. Two other properties and a historic district are listed on the National Register of Historic Places: The Palmer House built in 1901 and expanded in 1916, the Minnesota Home School for Girls built 1911–1935, and the Original Main Street Historic District built 1920–1947.

Sauk Centre Road Map

Sauk Centre city Satellite Map

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 4.25 square miles (11.01 km); 3.99 square miles (10.33 km) is land and 0.26 square miles (0.67 km) is water.

Sauk Centre is located along Interstate 94/U.S. Highway 52, U.S. Highway 71, and Minnesota State Highway 28. It is approximately 100 miles (160 km) northwest of the Minneapolis/Saint Paul metropolitan area.

The city is considered to be in the middle of the state. Sauk Lake and Sauk River are the most notable water features of the area. Fairy Lake and Lily Lake are located just outside of the city limits.