---

EDITOR’S NOTE:  This is the second in our periodic series looking into the ‘names behind the places.’ Multiple local spots are named for a person and we are always getting questions about who that is and why the location was named for them.  Throughout the year we will attempt to touch on each one.

Carlos Avery
The Hutchinson Leader newspaper is still being printed; and even though its publisher from the early 1900s, Carlos Avery, is no longer around the Wildlife Management Area in Chisago and Anoka Counties keeps his name alive.

Why is a huge open space in east central Minnesota named for a newspaperman who died in 1930, at the age of 62?

By all accounts Carlos Avery was proud of the fact the state commission he headed up for a time, had prosecuted illegal fishing and collected a record amount in fines, and was instrumental in promoting populations of game. Avery was appointed to head up this new Minnesota commission from 1907 to 1909 and returned in 1915 for several years.

The wildlife management area itself was created by the state Conservation Commission, by dedicating parcels that went tax forfeit in 1933. In 1937 the “game farm’ buildings and program opened. The state raised all sorts of game birds at the main buildings just west of Forest Lake in Linwood Township. Acres and acres were added over the decades and the wildlife management area is now about 24,000 acres.

The Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area may be Avery’s longest-living legacy, but he also helped to establish the first phone company in Hutchinson. Avery, a Democrat, was a mayor of Hutchinson for a term but also was defeated in three elections for various state and a Congressional office.

---