The City of Eden Prairie, Minnesota owes its name to Elizabeth Fries Ellet, the East Coast writer who visited the area in 1852. In her travelogue book, Summer Rambles in the West, Ellet described the Minnesota River Valley which adjoins the current day City of Eden Prairie, as the garden spot of the territory.

The celebrated valley of the Minnesota River--called St. Pierre by the French, and until recently, St. Peter's—extends in a general direction from west to east, and, with the country along its tributaries, forms the garden spot of the territory.

(Ellet, Summer Rambles in the West, 1853, p. 112)