A fact from Rice Creek (Mississippi River tributary) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 8 December 2006. The text of the entry was as follows:
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Latest comment: 17 years ago5 comments2 people in discussion
The MNHS page added to the external links section (see here and here) suggests the creek was named for Sen. Henry Rice, in apparent contradiction to the statement in the article regarding the Ojibwe name. Any thoughts? Malepheasant20:37, 6 December 2006 (UTC)Reply
d'Isle (1702) records the river as "Medepisinou".
According to Joseph Nicollet (1843), the river was recorded as "Ottonwey River" (Atoonowe-ziibi: River for making Canoes) and this name is the most consistent on most of the old maps. However, in this source:
Durand, Paul C., and Robin Siev Durand. Where the Waters Gather and the Rivers Meet: An Atlas of the Eastern Sioux. Published by the author. (Prior Lake, MN: 1994)
they say the river's name is not known in Dakota but it records the Ojibwe name and is not Ottonwey River as Nicollet did but rather "Manominiconsepi", which would be Manoominikaan-ziibi. However, the story of Fridley, the former Manomin County and Manomin County Park are all closely linked to Rice Creek. CJLippert21:44, 6 December 2006 (UTC)Reply
I couldn't confirm Durand's claims, but what I did find out is that the Rice Creek Chain of Lakes, a.k.a. Lino Lakes, is a well-known chain of ricing lakes, of which one of them is even called Rice Lake (Minnesota). It seems Nicollet map also called "White Bear Lake" not as the expected Dakota "Mahtomedi" but instead as "Mde wakanton Lake" and then shows a "Bears Lake" for Lake Phalen. CJLippert22:23, 6 December 2006 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for the information! I made some adjustments to the account of the stream's naming, giving some weight to the Minnesota Historical Society's version that its present name derives from U.S. Senator Rice, which seems reasonable, given his prominence at the time and the proximity of his land ownership. (The historical society's reference also distinguishes between the naming of the above-mentioned Rice Lake and Rice Creek.) The Joseph Nicollet account would be good to include if a bibliographic or web reference could be included. For the same reason (Wikipedia's Verifiability, not truth policy), I pulled the following sentence from the article for now, until a citation can be referenced: "Paralleling the course of this stream was a trail that connected the Mississippi River Road (now East River Road) at Fridley with Kettle River Tail at Forest Lake, Minnesota." --Malepheasant06:18, 7 December 2006 (UTC)Reply
This is the reference for Nicollet:
Nicollet, Joseph Nicolas and J. C. Fremont. Report intended to illustrate a map of the Upper Mississippi River. (Washington, DC: Blair and Rives, 1843).
