 The county was named for Isaac Stevens, who had led a railroad survey party across Minnesota in 1853 and was influential in bringing national attention to the Minnesota Territory.The territorial legislature had intended to thus honor Stevens in 1855 when another county was being created, but a clerical error caused that county to be named Stearns.The error was corrected by the 1862 act; by that time Stevens was a brigadier general for the Union Army in the American Civil War.