Mendota

City in La Salle County, north-central Illinois, 19 km/12 mi north of Peru; population (1990) 7,000. A market and canning centre in an agricultural area (corn and livestock), it also manufactures farm implements and building materials. Wild Bill Hickok State Memorial lies 11 km/7 mi to the southeast

Mendota

City in Dakota County, southeastern Minnesota; population (1990) 200. Mendota is a suburb of the Twin Cities (Minneapolis-St Paul), and is located at the junction of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers opposite St Paul. It was the first permanent European settlement in Minnesota.

Mendota was founded as St Peter's in the 1830s, and grew up around nearby Fort Snelling. When Henry H Sibley established the American Fur Company here in 1834, Mendota became the focus of the Red River country fur trade and the busiest commercial centre in the northwest. The proclamation establishing the Territory of Minnesota was issued here. Mendota is the site of the first stone-built house west of the Mississippi River (1835), now the Sibley House Museum.