All that remains of St. Lawrence today is the Strait House dating back to 1857. Six houses, a school, a hotel, a sawmill, a plat map, a post office are all gone. The house is located in the DNR's Minnesota Valley Recreation Area, between Belle Plaine and Jordan, north of U. S. Highway 169 and a mile west of the County Fair Grounds on County Road 57.

More than a dozen "paper townsites" (ghost towns) have been identified in the area, over 700 in the state of Minnesota. But St. Lawrence is unique. Long before there was St. Lawrence, and reaching back 8,000 years, Native Americans used the Minnesota River for transportation and as a buffer to the Ojibway of the north. Many Dakota villages were established near the river. County Road 57 south of the river follows the Indian trails, which gave way to the oxcart and later the stagecoach. It was the territorial road between St. Paul and Mankato. St. Lawrence began when steamboat traffic on the Minnesota River was brisk. Immigrants were arriving in large numbers, land speculators and town proprietors were enthusiastic, confident and hopeful. Steamboat traffic and stagecoach travel called for hotels and St. Lawrence was a leader. Perhaps the following chronology will help to identify the major thrusts and themes in the history of St. Lawrence:

• Scott County is organized. (1853)
• European settlement in the area is beginning (Shakopee 1851, Belle Plaine 1854, Jordan 1855).
• Survey and plat of St. Lawrence. Stodder, Pierson, Strait and DeCamp. (1856)
• Establishment of St. Lawrence post office, Orlando Child first post master, John Hewitt post master from 1868-1879 when it was discontinued. (1857)
• Strait builds limestone house across the road from the hotel. (1857)
• Construction of St. Lawrence Hotel (S.B. Strait) 3 stories plus basement, ballroom, black walnut doors probably milled in St. Louis. Limestone walls were 3 ft. thick at the base and 2 ft. thick at the roof. The hotel cost Strait $5,000 in gold. (1857)
• Panic of 1857 followed by hard times, resulted in a loss of confidence, hope and enthusiasm. It was a time of demise for many Minnesota townsites.
• School opened in a log cabin under Mary Everson. (1858)
• Stone school completed and taught by Dr. Salisburg. (1859)
• Strait offers St. Lawrence Hotel to Scott County for a court house in the court house fight of 1859.
• Saw mill destroyed by fire. Valued at $6,000. (1861)
• The Dakota Conflict. Railroad ties are used to barricade doors and windows in St. Lawrence. (1862)
• Railroad completed between Jordan and Belle Plaine. St. Lawrence is bypassed by a mile and a half. (1866)
• What began as a thriving, exciting, river town in the mid 1850's, with hotel whose ballroom attracted dancers from as far away as St. Paul, is abandoned! (1869)
• Fire destroyed St. Lawrence Hotel. It was tragically bulldozed for safety sake and along with it the stone school. (1958)
• Boom to bust thirteen short years -- 1856-1869.