Peterson State Fish Hatchery

Peterson’s trout hatcheries have provided trout to stock Minnesota lakes for over 100 years. The town’s founder, Peter Peterson Haselrud, established one of the first fish hatcheries in Minnesota. By 1874, the hatchery supplied at least 100,000 yearling trout to stock waters for fishing. The springhouse, one of the two remaining structures from the original Haselrud homestead, spanned the clean, coldwater spring used for the trout hatchery. After his death in 1880, Haselrud’s original ponds were filled in and the current fish hatchery, operated by the Minnesota DNR, is on a different site south of town. Every year the Peterson hatchery produces between 100,000 – 150,000 lake trout for the Minnesota Inland Lake Trout Program, which stocks cold lakes in Northern Minnesota.

Copy courtesy of DNR Interpretive Signs found along the Root River State Trail in Peterson, MN