The Episcopal Church of Holy Communion is one of St. Peter's major historic buildings. The town along the Minnesota River has dozens more. ST. PETER -- Except for some nocturnal chicanery more than a century ago, Bob Wettergren would have been talking about St. Peter, capital of Minnesota.

Instead, he could only talk about St. Peter, home to five Minnesota governors and a historic town that almost became the state capital.

But that's still plenty for the head of the chamber of commerce to talk about. Wettergren is the fourth generation of the Pell family that has lived in St. Peter, making it one of the town's oldest families. He is also an unabashed enthusiast for the town along the Minnesota River north of Mankato.

The town was first known as Rock Bend and the river was called the St. Pierre. But both changed to their present names in 1854, he said.

St. Peter was founded by Capt. William B. Dodd who came to the area from New Jersey. He is better known as the military leader who helped save New Ulm from Indian attack Aug. 23, 1862. The captain and his family are buried behind the historic Episcopal Church of Holy Communion.

St. Peter was slated to be the capital of the new state of Minnesota and even had a temporary capitol building in 1858. In fact, it was laid out with wider main streets, with names such as Lincoln and Washington, to accommodate the capitol. But a funny thing happened to a bill that would have done that. Backers of St. Paul, then an upstart small town along the Mississippi River, managed to waylay Joe Rolette who had the bill that needed to be signed by the governor. Somehow, Rolette was enticed to stay low for 48 hours, the bill died and St. Paul triumphed, he said.

Still, St. Peter was important. It was the place in 1851 where 35 Indian chiefs sold 24 million acres of land to the United States for 8 cents to 16 cents an acre. It was known as the Treaty of the Traverse des Sioux. It was also a major place for immigrants to get off steamboats and head farther west, he said. The last steamboat managed to get up the river, which was filling in with sediment, in 1897.

The area, in the late 1800s, became known as a great place to hunt and fish, he said. Swan Lake to the west was a nationally known waterfowl hunting spot which attracted hunters from Chicago. For fishing, the story goes that two Swedes went to the lake in the 1870s and returned two days later with 3,000 pounds of pike and bass.

The community relied on farming and several good investments to keep itself economically viable, he said. One good move was to spend $7,000 for a farm where the St. Peter Regional Treatment Center is today, he said. That center now has a $30 million payroll. In 1875, the town spent $10,000 to bring the railroad to town. In the early 1900s, the Lutheran Synod was thinking of moving Gustavus Adolphus College out, but the town raised enough money to keep it in St. Peter.

Today, it's the town's history that is key. ``History draws a lot of people,'' he said.

The town has 13 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, including the church, Old Main on the college campus, the public library, the Henry Swift home and Nicollet Hotel. William Jennings Bryant often spoke from the balcony of the hotel, which is now a bank. On the north side of town is the site of the treaty signing.p