In 1868, some men from the Saint Paul and Pacific Railroad were looking for land. They had chosen a route west from the Twin Cities that went right through a village named Collinwood. But the people in that village didn't want to give up or sell the land that the railroad needed for its rails, crossings, depot, etc. In frustration, the railroad men left town, redrew their route map, and moved one mile north. There they found the settlers in a place called Swan Lake more than eager to sell the land that the railroad needed. (Swan Lake Township was originally a part of Kingston and was named after a lake in the township. The first settlers were men by the names of Ayres and Richardson in 1856. They were surveyors from Mexico, New York. They left in 1862 during the Sioux Uprising and the Indians burned their cabin. After the Indian War, Isaac N. and Antone W. Russel came in 1864 or 1865. Soon a group from Kentucky came. The township became the town of Dassel.) The railroad platted out a new village in 1869, naming it Dassel, after one of their own employees, Bernard Dassel, a paymaster for the railroad, who came from a village named Dassel in the province of Einbeck, Germany. Bernard was a friend of railroad magnate James J. Hill and Hill gave Bernard the job of secretary of the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad, with a salary of $1800 a year. Parker Simons, a civil engineer for the railroad, put up the first frame building in Dassel. Bernard Dassel was put in charge of the pay car that was pulled by the Wm. Crooks Engine No. 1, which made a visit every month to Dassel with the cash for its workers. The station agent at the depot was Charles J. Atwater (who also had a town named after him), who was also postmaster with the new post office situated in the depot. When the post office was opened, it made the name Dassel official, by the way, and Dassel, with its 302 inhabitants, was incorporated as a village on March 4. 1878. The depot was on the north side of the main track until 1883, when it was moved over to the south side.