Location
Sacred Heart is in Renville County SACRED HEART Township, organized April 6, 1869, was settled mostly by Lutherans, so that the adoption of a name apparently Roman Catholic in origin seems surprising. It was derived, however, from the name given by the Dakota to an early trader, Charles Patterson, who about 1783 established a trading post at the rapids of the Minnesota River in the present section 29, Flora, later called Patterson's Rapids. He wore a bearskin hat, whence, "the bear being a sacred animal to the Indians, they called him the 'Sacred Hat' man, which gradually became Sacred Heart" (History of the Minnesota Valley, p. 817). The name so applied to the trader was afterward used by the Dakota for the site of his trading post and thence it was given, in this accepted translation, to the adjacent township. From: Upham, Warren. Minnesota Place Names: A Geographical Encyclopedia. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, First edition 1920. Third Edition 2001. Print.
