Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Sauk Centre, MN

Sauk Centre is a city in western Stearns County, Minnesota, near the geographic middle of the state, and it is part of the St. Cloud metropolitan area.

Sauk Centre was settled in 1856 and founded in 1863; its name was chosen by a lottery in which the town's eight original shareholders each submitted a suggestion, and Alexander Moore, who platted the town, submitted the winning name.

The town was first spelled 'Sauk Center,' but within about a year the British spelling 'Centre' was adopted, and in the 1940s residents lobbied to keep the original 'Centre' spelling on record.

Sauk Centre was incorporated in 1876 and counted 4,555 people in the 2020 census, living in 1,887 households.

Sauk Centre is the birthplace of Sinclair Lewis, who in 1930 became the first American author to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Sauk Centre inspired Gopher Prairie, the fictional setting of Lewis's famous 1920 novel Main Street, and the Sauk Centre Public Schools' sports teams are called the Mainstreeters in the novel's honor.

The Sinclair Lewis Boyhood Home in Sauk Centre is a National Historic Landmark, and the city has both a life-size sculpture of Lewis outside the public library named for him and a bust of him inside it.

Downtown Sauk Centre's Original Main Street Historic District, built between 1920 and 1947, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as are the Palmer House hotel, built in 1901 and expanded in 1916, and the Minnesota Home School for Girls.

Sauk Centre hosts the Stearns County Fair each year and celebrates Sinclair Lewis Days each July with a parade, crafts and a street dance.

The paved Lake Wobegon Trail runs through Sauk Centre, and the city sits on Sauk Lake and the Sauk River, with Fairy Lake and Lily Lake just outside the city limits.