Wait… is there a Balaton in the USA?

Szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu reports that in fact, there is an American town that has the same name as the “Hungarian Sea”, the Balaton. Who were its founders? When was it founded and how does it look like? Let’s try to find some answers to these questions and see whether there are any Hungarian relations concerning this town.

A few things we know for sure about the town

The American Balaton, situated in Minnesota state, was founded in 1879 when the railroad was laid down, but this was the time when it got a post office, too. It was only after 1892 that it became an independent settlement.

The website of Balaton starts with the following statement:

“There’s only one Balaton… You can search the entire United States and you won’t find another Balaton.”

However, this issue is not so simple as we know that, although there is only one Balaton in America, the “Hungarian Sea” also has the same name. As a consequence, we might ask whether the two are related to one another and if yes, then how. The interesting thing is that even the inhabitants of the American town contest the origin of its name and believe that there exists more than one theory about its origin.

• One theory says that it was named after the beautiful Hungarian lake, Balaton. It is interesting to examine that Wikipedia claims it as a fact, and in Hungary there are people who believe that Hungarians founded the settlement.
• Another theory is that the name comes from one of the stockholders and employees of the railroad built at that time, a Mr Balaton.
• Balatonm.com writes about a further possibility. According to this, when it came to the voting about the settlement’s name, the inhabitants suggested a “ballot-on” and here comes the name 🙂
• Some mention that one early source refers to the town as Belltown, but due to the advice of a travelling salesman, it was changed to Balaton because there is “only one other place with that name… a lake in Europe… the most beautiful lake in the world.”