Rosemount is a city in Dakota County, Minnesota, United States, on the southern edge of the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area. The population was 25,650 at the 2020 census.
History
After the 1851 Treaty of Mendota, which turned the land over to the federal government, the first European settlers began to arrive. In 1853, William Strathern from Scotland was the first to claim land in the area, and in 1854 the Dakota County Board of Commissioners appointed Andrew Keegan as the first postmaster. He named the post office Rosemount after a town in Ireland.
Rosemount was established as one of Dakota County's first 17 townships in 1858, and many of the original settlers were Irish Catholics. According to the city's website, there was some debate over whether to name the township Saratoga or Rosemount, with the latter finally chosen to reflect the town's Irish heritage and remain in keeping with the name given to the post office a few years earlier.
In 1853, Captain William B. Dodd started building one of Minnesota's earliest roads to connect Mendota to St. Peter, Minnesota. His road, later called the Dodd Road, ran through western Rosemount and was the location for several early establishments. Just east of Dodd Road, the Minnesota Central Railway built railroad tracks, a station, and an elevator in the 1860s, and a new commercial center grew up around it.
In the 1940s Rosemount was home to a military gunpowder plant, Gopher Ordnance Works, which manufactured white smokeless rifle and cannon powder during World War II. The University of Minnesota acquired a part of this land for agricultural research and other university projects in 1947,
In 1971, the Village and Township of Rosemount merged and incorporated as a city in 1975.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of , of which is land and is water.
U.S. Highway 52, Minnesota Highway 3, Minnesota Highway 55, and County Road 42 are four of the main routes in Rosemount.