Owatonna was first settled in 1853 around the ironically named Straight River, MinnesotaStraight River which is anything but straight. Local legend suggests that the name "Owatonna" is also an ironic name for the river, but the term "Ouitunya" (or straight) refers to the "morally strong traders" and not the rather whimsical and winding river. In 1883, Owatonna was the site of the State Fair and soon the county established its own fair in Owatonna, the Steele County Free Fair or SCFF, the largest free fair in Minnesota. All the attention on the area in the late 1800s caused the city administration (and a fly-by-night corporation from which the city administrators profited) to devise a tourism and bottled water scheme in which a fake mystical story centered around a "Princess Owatonna" was concocted. According to the story, Princess Owatonna, daughter of Chief Wabena, fell ill. The chief had heard of the wonderful curative effects of water bubbling from the ground in what is now Owatonna, and decided that only their magical restorative properties could save his daughter. After drinking the waters, Princess Owatonna was miraculously cured, lending her name and image to both the town and the newly minted bottled water company. A statue of the marketing scheme appears in Owatonna's Mineral Springs Park, next to Maple Creek, a tributary of the Straight river, and a fountain, where visitors can see the springs and drink the water that "saved" a princess. The Minnesota State School for Dependent and Neglected Children was built in 1886. The school took in orphans from around the state and taught them "the value of drill, discipline and labor". The children who died in the institution and were interred in the graveyard behind the school. In 1945, the orphanage was shut down and the facility began to serve handicapped children. In 1974, the City purchased the compound for its office space. Renamed 'West Hills', it continues to serve as the city's administration complex and home to many civic non-profit organizations including a Senior activity center, the Owatonna Arts Center, two non-profit day-care centers, a chemical dependency half-way house and Big Brothers/Big Sisters, among others. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owatonna%2C_Minnesota