While not placed at the actual site of the Stokesville Community, we commemorate the community by placing a geocache at this site. Stokesville was a small Catholic community located several miles west of Crystal. At one time there was a Catholic church, St. Bernard’s (the first Catholic church in the Crystal area), cemetery, a school, post office, etc. Although records are missing, it appears most of the bodies in St. Bernard’s cemetery were moved to Crystal when the Catholic church was built there in 1906. There is one lone remaining gravestone at St. Bernard’s.
George Stokes, for whom Stokesville was named, was one of the pioneers of this section of land and owned a nice farm west of Crystal. George Stokes also had the post office in his home and the school district also took Stokesville as its name. In the summer of 1881 George's sister, Sophia conducted a five-month term of school in a newly erected log structure belonging to Edward Fitzmaurice. The books were standard editions from the province of Ontario, from which the settlers came. That fall, the 3-mile square school district was organized and bonded. The school building was completed in 1884 and was demolished in 1989.
While this cache is not located at the actual site of the former town, there is a marker in this park that commemorates the settlement of Stokesville. If you would like to visit the actual site, drive approx. five miles west of Crystal on Highway 66. T=Terain - 2; D=Difficulty - 2; S=Size - Small. Attributes: WINTER FRIENDLY.